


this pen was inked with the promise of you

by clarityhiding



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: (except for not really; don't read this if you want heat cycles and all that), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Demisexual Tim Drake, Depression, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Intersex Omegas, M/M, Panic Attacks, Scenting, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, porn in the last chapter, the last chapter is probably actually about halfway between Mature and Explicit but whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-01 21:23:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14529462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding
Summary: Everyone has a mark-match, someone whose mark will match their own. No matter what, you will always meet your match after your mark comes in and before you die, it's just a fact of life.Tim's mark starts to come in the summer he turns twelve. Less than a week later, his match is dead. He doesn't meet anyone at all in the time between.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [this pen was inked with the promise of you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14928471) by [clarityhiding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding), [GLORIAW](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GLORIAW/pseuds/GLORIAW)



> Hooboy. So technically I started this for JayTim week, but clearly that didn't happen. Many thanks to the JayTim Discord chat for putting up with me asking inane questions about A/B/O dynamics, soulmates, and the pseudo-1890s for the past month, and to [chibi_nightowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi_nightowl/pseuds/chibi_nightowl) for volunteering to beta this even though she probably didn't know what she was getting herself into?
> 
>  **If you opened this looking for kinky A/B/O stuff:** Sorry, the A/B/O part is mainly in regards to scenting and is mostly a background thing. This is a soulmate AU with a side of A/B/O. ~~(And it's not even kinky in the slightest, unless your kink is Tim being depressed.)~~ (There is now at least some smutty stuff in the last chapter, so.)
> 
> FINALLY, since it's apparent that some people don't read tags (fair, sometimes they spoil the story, I respect that): This is a pseudo- **Victorian** AU. Think the **1890s** in terms of technology. Like, it's also secretly a steampunk AU but Tim is too much of a sad sack to notice that.  (So _please_ refrain from tagging it Regency because that was 1795–1837, which is not this at all and y'all are just misleading people when you do that.)

"Everyone has a mark-match," Mrs. Mac says, even though Tim knows that's not true, because his mother doesn't while his father does, but it isn't his wife. "Someone whose mark will match your own when you get it." She turns up her cuff, showing her own mark, gone white and raised like an old scar since the death of her husband.

Tim wants to touch it but doesn't because Mother says only rude people touch other people skin-to-skin. "Aren't you sad now that Mr. Mac is dead?"

"Sometimes, but never for long, because I was blessed to know him for as long as I did, and he wouldn’t want me to be sad now," Mrs. Mac says. "A mark is a promise from the Almighty. A promise you'll one day have perfect happiness, at least for a little while."

That night, lying awake in the big creaky house after Mrs. Mac has gone home for the day, Tim tries to imagine what perfect happiness would be like, what any great happiness would be like. Outside, the wind howls and he shivers, pressing his face deeper into the pillow from his parents' bed, seeking some of their comforting smell, but it's been two months since they were last home and there's hardly anything left to scent. Which is good, he firmly tells himself, because Mother says only babies and other uncivilized people still do anything so barbaric as scenting in this day and age and Tim is a big boy of eight.

The snowstorm rages outside, rattling the windows and pounding at the doors and Tim sneaks into his parents' bedroom and curls up in the middle of their big, empty bed. He is a big boy, but no one else is here and the scent of him will be long-gone from the bedding by the time his parents return home.

 

* * *

 

Jack and Janet Drake return from the winter dig and Tim checks his pace, doesn't run down the stairs to greet them the way he would Mrs. Mac. He waits patiently for Mother's brief touch on his shoulder, tries to not be disappointed when Father only gets as far as bending partway over before remembering himself (or maybe just registering Mother's glare) and not sniffing Tim's hair.

Mother says Father does it because he was raised by animals, that people with class don't do that kind of thing, and Tim nods but secretly sort of wishes his paternal grandparents were still alive, because he's seen Mrs. Mac hug her children while watching from the upstairs window and it looks like fun.

Father returns to teaching and Mother returns to business and Tim goes back to the library to read the old novels Mother doesn't know are hidden between the grammars and the encyclopedias and to dream about olden times when there were packs and hugs and not just promises of perfect happiness, _someday_. And when his parents are out, Tim sneaks into their bedroom and presses his face to their pillows, sniffing and telling himself it's the last time, that he won't do it again, he'll be a big boy and outgrow this just like he outgrew needing a light in his room at night.

 

* * *

 

Mother says that humanity is evolving and becoming better and that better means moving away from packs and marks and towards culture and commerce. Tim listens and nods and tries to understand, but it's hard to when Mrs. Mac makes all the forbidden, bad things sound so nice.

Tim makes the mistake of saying as much to Father where Mother can overhear. Mrs. Mac is gone the next day, because Tim is a big boy and can feed and clean up after himself. He never sees her again.

 

* * *

 

When Tim is twelve, Mother arranges for him to stay with relatives in order to meet other children of good quality, although she frowns when she says this, so he's given to understand that there's some question as to the quality of these relatives. A month before Tim's supposed to leave, he wakes one morning to a stinging sensation in his arm. When he pulls down the sleeve of his nightshirt, there's a faint pink shadow of a shape taking form on the underside of his wrist. He is nearly an adult and his mark is coming in.

Tim wants to show someone, but there's no one to show, his parents are in the city attending a conference of great importance; they will go straight to the winter dig site when the conference is finished. Mrs. Mac is long gone, hasn't been there for years, and Mother and Father don't believe in keeping staff on when the only one in the house is Tim. With no one present to tell, he writes his parents instead. Mother writes back to express her disappointment that Tim should have a mark, as it will make it more difficult to find a spouse who will marry against one.

He knows better than to suggest that he might marry his mark-match. Only silly, sentimental people who think they can live on love do that.

Still, Tim spends the days leading up to his departure date eagerly watching his mark take shape. A mark is a promise that sometimes you can live on love and happiness.

On the fifth day, Tim is outside watching lightning flash between distant storm clouds when suddenly everything hurts. He collapses to the ground, can't breathe, is sure he's dying as his vision first goes white with pain and then black as he finally, mercifully passes out.

When Tim wakes up, it's hours later and the sky is already turning dark. He slowly drags himself back into the house and to bed, too wrung out to do more than kick off his shoes.

He stays there for days, only getting up for water and to use the toilet. After three days, Tim finally feels well enough to search out food without his stomach twisting uncomfortably. It's while he's carefully toasting a slice of bread that he remembers the mark and eagerly pushes his sleeve out of the way to see if it's finished forming.

It hasn't. The unformed half closer to his palm has stayed smeared and amorphous. In fact, rather than solidifying, the whole mark has turned white and shiny, like an old scar. Like Mrs. Mac's mark after her husband fell off the roof and broke his neck.

Tim forgets food, forgets everything, just rushes through the house searching for a pillow, a coat, anything that might retain his parents' scent. He's a big boy of twelve, almost a man, he shouldn't need his parents' scents to calm him, but. But.

But Tim's mark-match is dead. They died before he could even meet them, and that doesn't happen. Not ever.

A mark is a promise from God, and God never breaks his promises. Except for the one he made to Tim.

 

* * *

 

A letter arrives from Mother's cousin several days later. There's been an accident in the family and Tim will have to come some other time, some other year. Arrangements will be made, await the forthcoming communication. Tim stares at the carefully written letter with dull eyes and barely registers what it says before going back to bed.

Another letter doesn't come.

 

* * *

 

Mother is delighted to learn that Tim's match has died. "It will be so much easier to find a good marriage now," she informs him. "Perfect for widows and widowers."

Father gently rests his hand on the top of Tim's head and murmurs soft, reassuring nonsense words. From this angle, Tim can see the curving shape of a laurel wreath on his father's wrist, pink and unmatched.

 

* * *

 

Less than a year later, Mother is dead, the victim of a cold contracted on Father's dig that never really went away. Carefully dressing her for burial, Tim sees the scorpion on her wrist, crisp and clear and fully-formed. He does not ask his father about it, though he wonders. Tim had always supposed his mother never gained a mark, though Mrs. Mac said that everyone has one.

A mark is a promise of happiness, but happiness is fleeting and doesn't feed you.

 

* * *

 

They lower Mother into the ground and Tim knows he should feel something, but mostly he just feels lost and adrift. He still hasn't cried over losing his mother, hasn't cried over much of anything at all since finally dragging himself out of bed last fall. Maybe he just doesn't have tears left in him.

Mother's cousin, the one Tim was to visit, comes to the funeral with his son and daughter. The males solemnly bow and the girl curtsies to Father and Tim, even though Tim is fairly certain only the cousin himself ever met Mother. The cousin lingers behind as his children go on ahead. He presses a card into Tim's hand and tells him not to hesitate to ask should he ever need anything. They're family, after all.

Tim barely notices, hardly cares. The cousin doesn't mean it anyway, is just going through the motions expected of him. Promises mean nothing when the one that matters the most has already been broken.

A mark is a promise from on high, but what are you worth if even God doesn't care if he honors his pledge?

 

* * *

 

Father stops going on digs every winter and instead stays home, teaching all year at the university. Life… Doesn't improve, exactly, but it also doesn't get any worse.

Years of living alone while his parents left to discover lost treasures in foreign lands have left Tim a somewhat-competent homemaker. They haven't taught him how to live with another person in the house, and though his parents didn't spend all their time overseas, did in fact spend a good portion of the year in Bristol, they were still rarely in the house itself, too busy with their lives to spend much of any time with Tim. Now, Father divides his time between the university and his home office, his students frequently invading the privacy of the library of the Drake household, searching for the one reference book they simply must have.

Tim isn't sure how to deal with these intrusions, with these people. They smell… different. Many have a strong, musky odor that tickles his nose, dragging out reluctant sneezes from Tim and laughter from the students, who smile and never get close enough to touch. A small handful smell sweet and comfortable, like a garden on a spring day, or a warm bed just waiting for someone to dive in and snuggle under the covers.

It takes some time, but Tim eventually grows used to the scents, the smells, the sounds of the students. To the idea of other people in his home, in his space. They don't know about the scarred lump on his wrist, half-formed and then abandoned, they don't know and so they never look at him with pity the way Father sometimes still does.

When one needs help finding a resource and asks for the wrong book, Tim doesn't think anything of finding the right one instead. Doesn't think anything of correcting their translations, pointing out their failures. The students are frustrated at first, angry that a child keeps telling them they're wrong. Their tune changes when the first student to follow Tim's suggestions starts getting higher marks, receives accolades of approval.

Life doesn't get better, but it doesn't get worse, and for the first time in a long while, Tim feels himself grounded with a sense of purpose.

 

* * *

 

Father comes home from work one day and pauses on the threshold of the house, head raised as he inhales deeply, a frown on his face. Coming down the stairs, Tim pauses, noticing the odd behavior. "Is something the matter?"

"What is that? It smells like something died in here." Father nose wrinkles, and he actively backs out the door, moving out of the house entirely. "Ugh, it's getting worse. That's absolutely _foul_."

Tim has been smelling it for hours, has spent all day trying to track down where in the house the odor is coming from, feeling worse and worse all the while. As the look on his father's face gets even more and more disgusted, Tim has a sinking feeling that he's finally found the source. "I'll take care of it," he says. "Don't worry."

He doesn't know why the smell is so awful, but Tim has a fairly good idea what's happening, so he trudges into the kitchen and roots through the cabinets until he finds the tin he saw Mother store there back before she died. The tea inside smells sour, but it looks just like what he saw in the herbal index in the library, so he measures out a careful amount, pours in the hot water, and drinks the resulting brew.

The smell disappears within the hour, and he follows his father to work the next day. The university library is much larger than the small one at home. Surely, Tim will be able to find an answer somewhere in there.

 

* * *

 

The tea is used as a means of birth control by all genders, which is why Mother stocked it, but it can also be used as a heat-suppressant for omegas and a rut-suppressant for alphas. Tim isn't certain which he is, because while he has the parts of an omega, all the literature leads him to believe that an omega's heat-scent tends towards cloying sweetness and an alpha's rut-scent towards pungent muskiness. Nothing says what it means when the smell is rot and decay, but then all the literature also says that mark-matches will always meet at least once before either dies.

Maybe if a person's mark-match dies before they ever meet, something inside that person dies as well. A mark-match is a soulmate, Mrs. Mac always said. Maybe, if his match died unfulfilled, Tim's soul died too, and that's what made such a horrible smell when his body tried to go into heat for the first time. The dead and rotting remnants of his soul.

An omega's adult-scent is a softer, lighter version of their heat scent. If Tim ever goes into heat, he'll lose his neutral child-scent, will smell like death all the time, and everyone will _know_. Everyone will know that he's so broken that his match couldn't even stand to stay alive long enough to meet him.

The herbal index says the tea isn't for long-term, constant use. That it can lead to inhibited sense of smell, nausea, internal bleeding, and eventual death, but Tim is already half-dead inside. Besides, all the literature also says that packless omegas can't survive heats.

He keeps drinking the tea.

 

* * *

 

More than one of the students comment in passing on Tim's complete lack of scent, so he seeks some sort of way to fake something like Father's beta scent, the already-fading memory of mother's scent. Through trial and error, he finds that adding dried catmint to the tea and rubbing fresh catmint leaves over his near-defunct scent glands allows him to mimic the spicy-sweet smell of a natural beta scent.

He reads a lot, books and medical journals, mythologies and legends. There's not much else he can do with himself, though some of Father's students ask about him attending the university. Tim calmly demures and tries not to think about things that might involve long-term plans. 

Everything Tim reads says the same thing. His scent is wrong for the omega he thinks he might be, and even without that, he should be dead already. Omegas can't survive without packbonds, and he hasn't ever had any kind of pack. None of the literature mentions marks affecting a person's secondary gender, their scent. But then, everything he reads also says it's impossible to lose your mark-match without ever having met.

Tim contradicts all the data and probably shouldn't even exist in this world.

Probably just as well he won't for long.

 

* * *

 

Father comes home one day and there's something different about him. Tim finds himself sniffing, instinctually seeking out some reason for the change in his father's mood. It's pointless, of course—one of the side effects of ashenweed tea is the deadening of osmic receptors that allow a person to differentiate moods and the like via scent. He can still smell most strong odors, but the subtle intricacies of human pheromones are beyond him.

"Did you have a nice day?" Tim asks, because it costs nothing to be polite and he's still trying to learn how to live around another person, even though Mother has been gone for four years already.

"Someone came by my office looking for the library today. We got to talking and, well…" Father trails off, a huge smile on his face as he turns up his shirt cuff. The curling laurel wreath that was pale pink when Tim last took note of it is now dark brown, like a birthmark or a freckle.

"Oh," Tim says, because he can't think of how else to respond. He knows his face is blank, he knows he should smile, should be happy for his father, but all Tim can think about is that this is something everyone in the world gets to experience except for him. The dead place in his chest flares briefly with pain.

It's the most he's felt in years.

 

* * *

 

Father's mark-match is a nurse by the name of Dana Winters. She is nine years younger than Father, seven years younger than his mother would be, were she still alive. Dana nearly hugs him when they first meet, stopping herself at the last minute when she sees how he stiffens and flinches away. Hugs still look wonderful, but if anyone gets too close they might notice that Tim doesn't actually smell like the beta everyone thinks he is, doesn't smell like much of anything at all aside from mint.

Dana bobs a quick curtsey instead. "It's very nice to meet you," she says, smiling shyly.

Tim returns her curtsey with a respectful bow, but he's in the middle of a growth spurt and his shirtsleeve rides up enough for Dana to see the edge of the awful, ugly blob of a scar that is his mark. Dana tries to hide her shock, but she's even worse than he when it comes to hiding how she feels. "It happened when I was twelve," he explains before she can ask what everyone always asks when they see it.

"Oh, but that's—!"

"I'm very happy for you and my father," he tells her, and forces a smile onto his face. It's not a lie, he _is_ happy for them. He just doesn't want to dredge up old feelings, hear the same empty condolences.

After all, how can it be a loss if Tim never really had a match in the first place?

 

* * *

 

A month later, Father proposes and Dana accepts. They plan a fall wedding. It would seem fast to Tim, except that the mark-matches in the novels join together on very similar—if not accelerated—timelines. It must be easy to find someone to spend the rest of your life with when some higher power has already done the hard part of picking them out for you. All anyone has to do is look, and they don't even need to do that if they don't want to. They can just wait and their match will eventually find them, if fate doesn't throw them together first.

Tim watches as Dana flutters about, buoyant on love and happiness, shared smiles and tender touches. He watches as his father spends more time than ever before in the present instead of his books, finally finding a reason in Dana to be in the here and now. Watching all of this, the scar on his wrist itches and he knows he can't stay. Father will want to share the world with Dana, and together they'll want to start a new life, one born of love and wonder instead of duty and financial stability. If he learned anything from Mother, it's that he doesn't belong in a home full of love.

When Father starts making arrangements for his first dig in years, one that will double as a honeymoon for the new couple, he feels a change in the air, and knows it's just a matter of time.

Things are morphing, life going on, and Tim is still frozen in the exact place he was five years ago, half-formed and scarred into nothing.

 

* * *

 

Father is waiting in his office when Tim walks in and cautiously takes a seat. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes, well." Father looks strangely flummoxed, almost like he isn't sure why his son is there, even though he's the one who arranged this meeting in the first place. "It's time we talked about your future."

Tim has a sinking feeling he knows what this is about. "I really don't think university would be a good fit for me. Not with my health problems." Father doesn't know his son is an omega, let alone a broken one. He doesn't know about the ashenweed tea, just believes Tim to be a beta like himself and his late wife, albeit a beta with a horrible sense of smell and frequent stomach complaints.

"No, no, of course not. Plus, your schooling—or rather, the lack of it—certainly isn't up to snuff. My fault entirely," Father says, though he offers no reason for why he never bothered with arranging for Tim to have a formal education. "It's come to my attention that Drake Shipping has also suffered since Janet's death, and I am now forced to sell the company. The house and most of its contents will also be sold to help cover various debts."

The room seems to go momentarily fuzzy as he tries to process his father's words. He has lived in this house his entire life. It is, in a sense, Tim's entire world. "Where," he starts to ask, stopping when he finds he can't speak, his throat is so tight. He swallows, trying to clear it. "Will I go with you? On the dig?"

"Oh no, of course not. You aren't trained, you could hardly contribute or even understand any of what was happening. I'm sure you'd find it dreadfully dull," Father says, quickly brushing aside the idea.

Tim bites his tongue, doesn't mention how he's been helping his father's students with their translations for years, having taught himself a number of languages using the dictionaries, grammars, and texts in his father's library. His father isn't looking for an assistant, after all. Just an excuse.

"What would you have me do, then?" Tim asks, though he doesn't doubt he already knows the answer. It's obvious from the way Father refuses to meet his gaze.

"Really, your mother had the right of it," Father says, and Tim's stomach twists, because even though he's been expecting this for years, it doesn't make it any easier for him to hear. "I've found you a husband."

 

* * *

 

Professor Williams is a colleague of Jack Drake's, widowed and left with two children. He has some money from his family that he's invested wisely over the years, and maintains a small household staff. He is not remarrying looking for a homemaker, which is good as Tim's never been anything other than mediocre in the kitchen. Tim suspects the man is marrying for the prestige of having the son of a minor noble lady for a spouse. Theoretically, the blood of some king runs through Tim's veins, but he's has never seen how that counts for anything.

They meet in a judge's office, sign some papers, and Tim is married. He loads his trunk into the professor's coach, shakes Father's hand, and clambers inside. Tim knows he will never see his childhood home again, will likely never see Father again. He tries to muster up some kind of emotion at these realizations and instead he just feels empty.

Riding to the professor's home, Tim is alone with his husband for the first time. "There's something I need to tell you," Tim says, because he would rather his husband learn of his omega status from him and not tonight in their marriage bed. He isn't looking forward to the inevitable intimacy that comes with marriage, but he isn't dreading it either. If anything, he's indifferent on the matter.

"I already know about your mark-match; your father told me all about it," the professor says, waving it off as nothing, though Tim isn't sure what the man thinks he knows about Tim's match beyond the fact that they're dead. His parents refused to listen when he tried to explain he never even met his match, that something went wrong.

"This isn't that." Tim takes a deep breath, prepares himself to explain about his aborted heat, the ashenweed tea, everything. "This is, well. About tonight, I—"

"We will not be sharing a bed," the professor says abruptly. "You're a child and this is hardly an arrangement I entered into for a bed-warmer. My daughter is in want of a governess while I require a spouse to keep husband-hunters off my back. You will serve to fulfill both needs."

Tim knew he wasn't getting a typical marriage out of this, but he's a little stunned by the man's gall. "You wanted a governess you didn't have to pay."

"And you wanted room and board now that your father's mismanaged his business to the point of bankruptcy," the professor counters.

Biting his tongue, Tim says nothing. He can't argue with the man's assessment of his situation, after all.

 

* * *

 

The room the professor shows him to is clearly meant for the head of the house to sneak their lover into, a secret room accessible from the master bedroom via a hidden panel. There's also a door connecting the room to the outside corridor tucked behind a wall-hanging, but Tim notes it can only be opened from inside the secret room. Which is only fair, since the hidden panel can also only be opened from one direction as well.

"You don't want me in your bed, but you also want to keep track of who sleeps in mine," Tim observes as he pulls his trunk straight through the master suite and into the secret room.

"I expect you to conduct yourself with a sense of decency and decorum while you reside in my home," the professor informs him stiffly, and Tim wonders at the phrasing, the implication that this is a temporary position and not a lifetime commitment. Of course, there's no way the professor could foresee he's to be widowed twice, not with the age gap between himself and his new spouse. "If you wish to have," he pauses, eyeing Tim dubiously, " _guests_ , you are welcome to do so, as long as they come and go in a discrete manner."

Tim stares at the man in disbelief. He knew this wasn't a marriage borne out of love, but he really hadn't expected leave to engage in affairs right from the start. For one brief moment he feels a flare of disgust that this man should think so little of mark-matches and love to go so far as to encourage loveless intercourse. That brief blaze passes almost as soon as it starts, but the pure fury and raw emotion is so unexpected and unsettling that Tim forgets to respond, forgets to say anything or do anything at all beyond simply stare at this man who is now his husband.

The professor goes on, speaking of mealtimes, duties, what Tim can expect, what the staff has been told of their marriage. On some level, Tim registers what he's being told, registers it and takes it in, files it away for later. But he's still caught on the overwhelming thought that this is the life Mother planned for him, one empty of love, of feeling, of pack.

This is the rest of his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Married life is rough.

The professor's daughter (Miss Williams, never Calpurnia, because Tim isn't _really_ family, just a member of the staff) isn't so bad. She's bright and cheerful, though she struggles with mathematics and science. That's alright, since he must admit defeat when she requests lessons in music and dance.

It's a strange situation, to say the least. Miss Williams is on the cusp of womanhood, her mark fresh and new on her wrist, a soft pink plumeria, delicate and beautiful. She badgers Tim until he shows her his own mark, partly-crisp, mostly-blob. "It isn't very pretty," she says, sounding more than a little unsure. At twelve, she is no stranger to novels like the romances he snuck into his trunk; he's seen her hide her own forbidden literature under her needlework more than once when the professor's walked into the room.

"Sometimes they aren't," Tim says. "My mother's mark was a scorpion, and those are scary, aren't they?"

She nods solemnly. Then, because she's a bright girl who is no stranger to hearing what isn't said, asks, "It's not your father's also?"

"Not every married couple has matching marks. Your father and I don't," Tim reminds her. "Now, about this equation. If you're solving for _x_ and _b_ is 3, then what—"

"Of course you don't, because he had Mother and then she died," she says, unwilling to be sidetracked. "So you can't be the same. Won't your match be sad you didn't wait for them?"

Twelve is not the age to have your universe shattered; Tim learned that the hard way. He doesn't tell her his match was the one who refused to wait, the one who left him to a lifetime of loneliness. "These things tend to work themselves out in the end. My father married my mother first, but he eventually found his mark-match, and they're married now."

"Can I touch your mark?"

"No, and that's a very rude thing to ask. Come on, solve for _x_."

Mathematics distract her for the moment, but afterwards he makes certain his shirt cuffs are always buttoned up as tightly as possible. There are things he never wishes to speak of, never wants anyone in this house to know. It's bad enough that the household staff eye their young mistress's new governess warily, their nostrils flaring every time he walks past. Tim may technically be a part of the family, but he doesn't smell of the professor's pack, doesn't smell of much of anything aside from the catmint.

A packless beta may not present the same danger that a packless alpha or omega might, but pack is still important among certain classes, and someone who smells of no pack at all is suspicious.

 

* * *

 

Another six months pass before he finally meets the professor's son. It's then that Tim learns the boy is only fourteen months his junior and he hates his new stepfather with a passion for not being his mother, for assuming to try and take her place.

Tim doesn't have have the heart to tell him about the maid that comes to the professor's bedroom each evening, the noises that follow after, muted by the thick walls of the hallway but not by the hidden panel. Doesn't tell the boy that the mark on the professor's wrist is still dark and smooth.

Looking back later, Tim probably should have thought to mention it.

 

* * *

 

In total, Tim is married to the professor for two years, eight months, and eleven days, at which time a maid knocks on the professor's door to wake him one morning only to find him still abed, stiff and cold and clearly dead for hours.

The household flutters about in a tizzy, sending for the doctor, the lawyer, the extended family. The professor's son is in the house, having recently completed secondary school and readying himself for a year of travel and exploration abroad before attending university, and he takes charge of his sister, comforting her and scenting her while he glares daggers at Tim over the top of her honey-brown curls.

For his part, Tim starts planning as soon as he hears the news. He isn't certain what's to happen with him—legally, he was the professor's husband, but the professor left an heir, one who is only a few years short of being of age and who isn't particularly fond of his stepfather. So instead he sits down to write a letter to his own father, asking if Tim might stay with him while he sorts himself out. Acting as a governess wasn't nearly as bad as he'd expected it to be, and while Tim is certainly at a loss when it comes to the traditional omega pursuits of dancing and music, he can certainly tutor children whose secondary gender has yet to be determined.

It's several hours later that Tim emerges from his room with his completed letter, intent on slipping out unnoticed to mail it. He's nearly to the door when his arm is caught in a strong grip and he's yanked into a drawing room full of people, all of them turned in his direction and glaring. He recognizes the professor's sisters, brothers-in-law, sister-in-law, nephews, nieces—and, of course, the man's son towering beside him, still gripping Tim's upper arm hard enough to bruise.

" _You_ ," snaps one of the sisters, brittle and sharp in both face and voice. "You did this! With your—your _everything_! Packless _heathen_!"

"Young enough to be his own son," another sister sniffs, her face pinched like she smells something nasty. Maybe she does, he certainly wouldn't know. "I told Bertram not to do it, not to take the risk. Anyone who could take such poor care of their mark-match to lose them so young couldn't possibly be an appropriate person for Calpurnia to associate with."

"Scandalous," agrees the third and final sister, one who's only ever spoken in single-word statements every time he's encountered her.

Their words are nothing new, nothing Tim hasn't heard from the entirety of this family before, and he lets them roll over him, shrugs them off. "I'm very sorry for your loss," he says a little stiffly, because this hardly seems the time to start in on all his faults when they should be mourning, if anything. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a letter to mail."

"Doesn't even care his own _husband_ is dead!" the brittle sister exclaims, looking ready to faint at the very idea.

"It was an unfortunate what happened, but everyone in this room knows we weren't married in the traditional sense," Tim snaps, because he's tired. He's tired of faking, he's tired of toeing the line, of always doing the right thing, pretending this marriage is anything other than what it actually is. Was. "I'm sorry he's gone, but I have to think of myself now."

"You do," sneers the son. "Especially considering the first thing we intend to do is annul that ridiculous sham of a marriage you forced my father into."

Tim blinks. "I'm... pretty sure you can't annul a marriage after one of the parties is dead. And I didn't arrange it, my father did."

"We can damn well _try_."

" _Stop_ ," someone says, bursting into the room. Tim thinks it might be one of the housemaids, possibly even the one whose dulcet cries of passion he's had to listen to regularly for the past two and a half years. "You can't let him go! The doctor's just confirmed it—the professor was _murdered_!"

 

* * *

 

The family locks Tim up in the library while they wait for the detective to arrive and take stock of the situation. He's able to slip the letter to his father to the professor's daughter in the chaos following the maid's announcement, but he's not sure she'll actually see that it gets out, and he didn't have the time to append a postscript detailing the most recent revelation.

It's odd that they feel the need to hold onto him, aside from the obvious fact that the family would like nothing better than to pin the death of their alpha on his inappropriate and highly irregular husband.

He takes a book off the shelf and settles in to wait.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, the detective makes an appearance, nodding a greeting as Tim calmly but firmly corrects him that he goes by Mr. Drake, never Mr. Williams. The detective seems briefly thrown by the remark, but overall takes it in stride, glancing around the room before plopping himself down on a couch and proceeding to aggressively interview him on all the particulars of the previous night—what the professor ate and drank the previous evening, when he retired, who visited him, if anyone.

Tim answers as truthfully as possible, all the while gathering his own information from the questions the detective chooses to ask. It soon becomes apparent that while the detective hasn't quite bought into the narrative told him by the professor's family (that he is a gold-digging, soul-sucking monster who conned his way into the professor's heart, home, and bed with the sole intention of eventually murdering him and inheriting a sizeable chunk of the estate), he's also doubtful of Tim's claim that he's more of an employee than a husband.

"You're welcome to ask Miss Williams if you don't believe me." Tim is fairly certain the raport he's established with the professor's daughter is solid enough to withstand even the pressures of her brother and aunts, though of course he can't be sure. "As for sharing the professor's bed, he made it clear from the outset that there was absolutely no chance of that happening, that the very idea disgusted him. Personally, I think he may have been exclusively interested in women."

"Because of his deceased wife," the detective suggests. He left off scribbling in his notebook some time ago and now is just studying him in a strange, calculating way. Tim suspects the man doesn't even need the notes, that the pen and pad are more props than anything else, though he has yet to fathom what purpose they serve.

"Because of the very loud and enthusiastic lovemaking he regularly engaged in with one of the maids," Tim corrects. "And his wife, I suppose."

"No one mentioned he had a lover," the detective mutters. "Of course, that's not going to look too good for you. Spurned husband and all that."

Tim rolls his eyes. "Please, like I care about that kind of thing. As you said, the professor is—was—old enough to be my father."

"Many people wouldn't let that stop them."

"I have absolutely no interest in such things and never have," Tim flatly informs him. "The marriage was a business arrangement, nothing more.”

The detective studies him for a moment, his expression depressingly neutral. Tim has the feeling that even if he could pick up on people's scents, he still wouldn't get anything from the other man.

Finally, the detective asks, "Aside from you and the professor, did any of the rest of family know about the secret room?"

"The family definitely don't know it's there," Tim says, thinking quickly. One of the family's prime complaints has always been that he's using his nubile young self and his skills in the bedroom to sway the mind of their patriarch. Preposterous, of course.

"What about the servants? Which of the maids is tasked with cleaning it?"

"None of them, that's always been my responsibility. As far as I'm aware, none of the staff is aware that I don't sleep in the master bedroom with the professor. Didn't sleep," Tim corrects belatedly. He swallows, feeling somewhat queasy by the reminder of his unsure situation. Clearing his throat, he continues. "If you're thinking someone could have used my room to sneak into the the professor's room, you're barking up the wrong tree—the door can't be opened from the hall side, it's effectively a one-way passage.

"Unless the person inside the secret room opened the door for someone."

"True, but the panel between the bedroom and my room can only be opened on the professor's side." A thought occurs to Tim and he adds, "Actually, there's a member of the staff who knew I didn't sleep in the professor's bed—the maid who was his lover. I'm not sure if she's aware of the secret room, but she must've known I was sleeping elsewhere."

"Ah, a good point." The detective jots a quick note in his pad before glancing up again. "Now, if you could show me the trick to entering this room of yours, I'd be much obliged."

He leads the detective to the master bedroom, unconsciously logging details as he passes through the room to the fireplace, trying to see if there's anything out of place or different than usual, but aside from a cup and saucer on the bedside table, there's nothing of note. The professor's body is already gone, taken to the morgue to be examined by the coroner.

Tim operates the hidden knob in the carved mantelpiece on automatic and the detective asks him to do it again so he can see the trick of it as well. After the detective's curiosity has been indulged, Tim makes to leave when the detective detains him, stopping just short of touching his arm. "Why don't you stay with me for now. The harpies were circling in the hall when we passed, and I wouldn't be a good man if I let you walk back out into that."

He noticed the professor's sisters hovering earlier, but had tried to ignore them, particularly the loud comments of the pinched one, heavily insinuating that Tim intends to persuade the detective of his innocence the same way he does everything according to this family. Which is to say, on his back. "I'm sorry about them. They tend to forget that people who aren't just like them are, well. People."

The detective tilts his head to the side as he pushes through the hidden panel, holding it open just long enough for Tim to follow, the mechanism snapping it back into place as soon as there's nothing to hold it ajar. "Any particular reason why they dislike you so much?"

"I think they were hoping their brother would marry better if he had to remarry at all. Or maybe it's just that I wasn't his mark-match and they assume I must be sneaking around with my own match."

"Are you? Having an affair with your match, I mean. Or any affair at all?"

"No. To both questions. I." Tim hesitates, trying to decide whether he wants to add more. "My match died several years ago. I was fairly young at the time and it was." He pauses again, clearing his throat, cradling his wrist to his chest. "I'd rather not talk about that." Especially now that the detective is looking at him with big, soulful eyes, filled with pity that Tim just doesn't know how to handle.

Tim collapses on the edge of the bed and watches with dull eyes as the detective shakes himself into action and proceeds to methodically search the room. He tries not to wince as the man recklessly shifts clothes and books, not that he really has any room to complain, since he himself is seldom tidy in his personal space. When the detective moves on to the precarious piles of paper on the tiny writing desk, causing one stack to tip and slide to the floor, Tim can't stay silent any longer, jumping to his feet.

"You're getting them all out of order," he complains, hurrying to right the mess. "I'll never figure it out again if they get all mixed up."

There's no comment from the detective, and when Tim looks up the other man has left off his haphazard search in favor of studying the paper in his hand with great concentration. Tim hopes it's not anything that might incriminate him, like a list of ways to kill someone. He's fairly certain he's never written such a thing, but there have been times in the past that he's awakened to some fairly odd things he scribbled out while more asleep than awake.

"Something the matter?" Tim figures it a safe enough question to ask. Not telling.

"You did this?" the detective asks, turning the sheet to show the sketches of a machine to record large amounts of information in a condensed format, via punches in thin cardboard, similar to an automatic loom.

"It's just old doodles," Tim mutters. "I read an interesting article in one of the journals at the university library a while back that hypothesized the usefulness of such a thing and wondered how one might go about making it." He keeps meaning to get back to it, but it's hard to find the energy to do as much as roll out of bed, most days.

"I think I read that article—or, well, my brother and father babbled at me enough about it that I feel like I read it—and you're not giving yourself anywhere near enough credit. The author just had vague theories, while this," the detective waves the sheet around excitedly, "looks like real possibilities. And you're making do as a governess? What a waste."

"It's not like there's any call for fantastical doodles. And I'm hardly qualified to do anything else." Not that he's ever made any effort to seek any kind of qualifications. Investing in his future has always felt… frivolous.

"I'm certain you could find investors for this," the detective insists, carefully returning the sheet of doodles to the exact location he found it on the desk. Apparently he can be tidy when it suits him.

"If I don't end up hanging for murder," Tim reminds him.

"Mm, I'm increasingly coming to feel that isn't a likely outcome of all of this." Moving on from the desk, the detective homes in on the small stove meant for heating the room and the little kettle Tim keeps on it. The detective barely spares the stove a glance before moving on to the shelf above it, where there's a cup purloined from the kitchen and a row of canisters representing his humble assortment of teas. It's these canisters that the detective chooses to focus on now.

"It's just tea," Tim says, despite meaning to stay silent and not invite any additional interrogation.

"You have a number of fairly common varieties. Wouldn't it be simpler to just use the common stock in the kitchen?" the detective asks, unscrewing lids and checking the contents of each canister. Maybe he's looking for a murder weapon, though if he is, why ignore both the kettle and the stove?

"I sometimes need a cup right before bed in order to sleep. I definitely need one in the morning before I can be considered fit company for others." He isn't about to volunteer the fact that part of his morning ritual also includes a cup of ashenweed tea. There's really only one reason most people drink the stuff, and Tim has already made it clear contraception isn't a concern for him. He'd rather not encourage the detective to hypothesize why else a young supposed beta might choose to consume something known to have brutal and highly distressing side effects.

Tim holds his breath as the detective inspects the contents of the ashenweed tea canister. The tea itself is sweet and spicy in scent, the result of Tim's own additions of catmint and, more recently, ginger root to help calm the inevitable queasiness that comes from consuming ashenweed in the first place. From what he can recall, plain ashenweed tea is slightly sour in a bitter, unpleasant way that nags at the edge of your senses, subtle enough that he hasn't been able to smell it in years.

Setting the canister down, the detective strides over to the small window that provides the room with most of its illumination during daylight hours. There's a potted catmint plant on the sill and it's this plant the detective touches now, crushing a leaf and bringing his fingers to his nose to sniff the resulting odor. The detective's head snaps back around and he gives Tim a strange, searching look. "Stay here," he orders, stepping out into the corridor, letting the door swing shut behind him.

On the bed, Tim fidgets uneasily. As far as he's aware, catmint isn't dangerous, but maybe he's wrong. Maybe there's some poison that can be distilled from it and since he's already the prime suspect, his clever ruse of faking a beta scent has caused him to blunder into a noose.

Thankfully, he isn't left to stew in his own insecurities for long as the detective is just as quick to come back as he was to leave. When the man returns, he's carrying a tea cup, perhaps the same one Tim noticed in the professor's bedroom earlier.

"Well, Mr. Drake, I'm presented with something of a conundrum," the detective says, taking the ashenweed canister off the shelf and setting it next to the cup on the desk. "I arrived here after the doctor alerted the authorities of what he believed was a murder. Dead body, clear signs of poisoning, remnants of ashenweed tea in the victim's cup and, after the coroner has had her way with him, likely remnants in the deceased's mouth and stomach as well."

"Alright," Tim says slowly, his heartbeat quickening in his chest. "Seems straightforward enough."

"You would think so, wouldn't you? Particularly once I noticed that you, my victim's young husband, are clearly a longtime user of ashenweed tea—don't give me that look, it's obvious you can't smell a thing or else you'd realize your in-laws are just as stumped as you about the professor's murder and you wouldn't be so frightened of their empty accusations," the detective says when Tim's face goes pale.

"You have to admit their arguments hold merit, particularly considering the evidence," Tim counters, indicating the cup and canister. "Clearly I have more than enough ashenweed to have brewed a lethal dose."

"Ah, I thought much the same thing until I opened your stock," the detective says. He gestures to the cup and can, a sharp smile on his face. "I'm not sure your sense of smell is good enough, but ahead and take a whiff."

Cautiously, Tim does as instructed. From the cup he gets nothing, but even he can see the bits clinging to the sides of the cup and recognize them for what they are, fresh-picked ashenweed, still slightly green and not entirely dried out. He turns to the canister, knowing what he'll find, and he takes a long, deep breath of the spicy-sweet catmint scent. "No mint in the cup."

" _Exactly_. The tea your husband drank came from an entirely different stock," the detective triumphantly announces.

"Maybe I added the catmint after the fact," Tim argues, unable to help himself. "To cover my tracks and throw you off my trail."

"Why not just get rid of the whole canister instead of doctoring it? If you had, there would be no cause to suspect you aside from the fact that your husband had a lover you might be jealous of," the detective says. "Plus, the ashenweed in your canister is significantly older and dryer than the green stuff used to make that cup."

"You forget that I'm a conniving gold-digger," Tim reminds him. "Before the doctor declared it murder, the whole family was on the verge of calling for a posthumous annulment."

"…is that even possible?"

"That's what _I_ said!"

"Which just goes to show that none of you have read Professor Williams's will, because if you had, you would know that he never updated it after the death of his first spouse. It provides for his wife, should she survive him, but makes no mention of any husband." The detective watches Tim with keen interest as he says all of this.

"Oh." Tim knew the man never saw him as more than a convenient solution and possible stepping stone, but he never thought the professor wouldn't make any kind of proviso for him. "It's a good thing I wrote to my father then, I suppose."

"What business is your family in? I don't think anyone's told me your background… Impoverished nobility, I take it?"

"The nobility comes from my mother's side and they're all dead, but yes, I suppose," Tim admits. "I'm fairly certain my mother brought the class and my father the money to their marriage. The Drakes were in shipping until Father neglected the business to the point of bankruptcy. He's a professor of history and archeology." He swallows, glancing to the side. "I doubt he's even in the country right now. He goes on digs in the winter months and has never been a very good correspondent. His last letter came nearly two years ago."

The detective is staring at him, wide-eyed and strangely sad-looking when Tim finishes. In his seat, Tim shifts uncomfortably. He hasn't said anything shocking, he doesn't think. Nothing that pegs him as a murder suspect, certainly.

"Drake..." The detective trails off. Grimaces. "Your father wouldn't be Professor Jack Drake by any chance, would he?"

"Yes," Tim says, slightly relieved that the man is more concerned about his family than his financial situation. "Is something the matter?"

"You mean no one told you…? Mr. Drake, your father and stepmother disappeared in the desert over eighteen months ago. General consensus is they got lost in a sandstorm and died of exposure, though no bodies have been found. I'm so sorry."

The news of Father and Dana's assumed deaths is overwhelming and numbing at the same time. He hasn't seen or spoken to either since his marriage, but Father was the closest thing he ever had to pack, and Dana was sweet from what Tim saw of her. She'd made his father happy, brought laughter into the Drake home, something that was sorely lacking throughout Tim's childhood.

The detective is oddly empathetic when he realizes just how ignorant Tim was of his father's fate. He keeps moving as if he wants to embrace Tim, then stopping at the last minute when he remembers how completely inappropriate it is to touch people who aren't a part of your own pack.

Tim sniffs, clears his throat, and waves the detective off. "Sorry. Just. I guess the professor was informed and forgot to tell me. Don't worry about me, just go find who did this."

"Would you like me to call someone to sit with you?" the detective asks, looking weirdly worried and concerned, like Tim is his responsibility or something. "I'm not sure you should be left alone at a time like this."

It's an odd thing to say. Tim was alone after his match died. He was alone again after the death of his mother, his father wrapping himself up in his work to avoid his grief and consequently avoiding his son in the process. Why should things be any different this time? "I'm fine," he tells the detective, and it's not a lie, exactly. He is fine, just like he has been ever since the summer he turned twelve. Tim is always fine, because it isn't like he really has a heart left to break.

"It can be tough, losing your parents. Doubly-so when your parents are your entire pack. That's why you need the ashenweed isn't it? To deal with the pack separation?"

Tim tilts his head to the side, trying to understand what the detective is asking. Everything is fine, but everything is also numb and there's a rushing in his ears that makes it difficult to hear much of anything. "Yes. Something like that," he says after a few minutes when he realizes the detective is still waiting for an answer. "Are you going to arrest the maid?"

"What?"

"The professor's lover. Sorry, I don't know her name." Tim doesn't know why he's saying this; if his father is dead, he may as well hang for the professor's murder. There's nowhere for him to go after all, and the professor's family is hardly going to let him stay here or write him a letter of reference to help him find a new position.

"Don't concern yourself about that. The grieving process is natural, you don't have to try and force that instinct out with something else," the detective starts to say before he stops. Sighs. Closes his eyes and rubs them. "Alright, I'll bite. Why should I arrest her?"

"For killing the professor? That was what you were getting at with that whole thing about the tea, wasn't it? I'm sorry, I'm not normally this slow about things." It's so obvious now that Tim's had time to process all the information; maybe Father was onto something, using other things to bury grief. Ashenweed can be used by any gender or sex, but it's primarily used by omegas partnered with alphas. Tim isn't sure of the maid's secondary gender, but he knows the professor's wife was an omega, and it wouldn't surprise him to learn the man had a specific type.

The detective is staring at him like he's grown a second head, and it's mildly disconcerting. "Did I get it wrong?"

"No," the detective says, drawing the word out. "No, that was pretty much my conclusion as well. Only thing that doesn't make sense is why she targeted him and not you."

"Oh. That's easy—they were mark-matches and I suspect he told her he'd marry her once his wife died. Unfortunately for her, he wasn't about to invite the wrath of his family by marrying a maid. As for me, well." Tim shrugs. "Likely she saw the same signs as you that I drink ashenweed tea. She just didn't know I customized the blend I drink and didn't take that into account when framing me for the professor's death."

"His mark-match? I thought his wife was—"

"So did his family, but there's no way his mark was scarred out, no matter what they thought."

"Still, to kill your own mark-match…" The detective shudders.

Tim thinks of his own mother, brushing off marks and matches as inconsequential and yet sporting a matched mark in death. Of his own mark, forever unfinished and unmatched. "I think there's a lot more to marks than everyone says. Just because someone matches you when you meet doesn't mean they will ten years later. People change."

The detective stares down at the empty cup, bits of bright green ashenweed leaves still clinging to its insides. "Clearly, that change isn't always for the better."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim makes a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a panic attack in the third scene of this part. Starts with a cold lump in Tim's chest, goes through the end of the scene.

Tim is allowed to stay for the funeral. The professor's family doesn't approve of him one bit, still sure he's somehow responsible for their patriarch's murder, but even they aren't so gauche as to keep the man's husband from attending his funeral. Though, as it is, Tim has no idea what he's going to do once he returns to the house. His trunk is packed and waiting next to the door, but he has no way to transport it, nowhere to go. On the detective's advice, he wrote to his mother's distant cousin about his situation, but he's not sure the letter has even been delivered as so little time has passed.

All of this is running through his mind as he makes the slow trudge down the hill to the cemetery entrance where all the coaches are waiting to take the family back to the house—only the family, not him. No one except his young charge is willing to share an enclosed space with him, and as a fourteen-year-old omega, she has no say in any matter whatsoever. Tim walked to the church and now he'll walk back.

There's something of a commotion going on at the foot of the hill, and it's easy to see the cause. Sitting among all the coaches and horses is a shiny black motor car, a man who must be its driver leaning against the hood, huge and intimidating. As the first few people approach, the driver glances up from the book in his hand, his eyes skimming over the mourners in their gloomy black funeral best.

Finally, the driver's gaze settles on the professor's son. "I'm here for Timothy Drake. You him?"

The boy splutters, obviously torn between taking offense at the misidentification and subsequent slight, and demanding why such a nice and expensive motor car is there for someone so unimportant. It's something Tim would dearly like to know as well.

"I'm Tim Drake," he offers, stepping forward, the crowd parting around him as everyone hurries to ensure they don't so much as brush against him.

"Good, it's cold and I don't want to wait any longer." The driver opens the door of the car, tossing his book in before standing next to it, waiting expectantly. At Tim's bewildered look, he adds, "His Grace sends his apologies for not coming to get you himself, but he's currently out of the country. Still, I'm to take you back to the manor; already picked up your trunk and everything."

"His Grace?" If anything, Tim's even more confused now.

"His Grace, Duke Bruce Wayne."

"And what does the Duke of Gotham want with _him_?" the professor's pinched sister wants to know.

"Oh," Tim says, more than a little stunned. He knew, of course, that his mother's family was of the aristocracy, but no one ever explained to him exactly _how_. "He's my cousin."

The rest of the gathered crowd seems just as surprised as he is by this news, so it would appear that they were also in the dark when it came to just which family their late patriarch married into. He wonders if maybe they would have behaved differently towards him if they'd known the pedigree of his antecedents. For his part, as disconcerting as it is to have this information dropped on him now, he's glad the rest of them were just as ignorant. Now he has their measure and, it would seem, absolutely no reason to stay in their company one second longer.

Tim wastes no time climbing into the beautiful machine, sliding across the seat to the passenger side so the driver can get in after him. He spares one brief wave for the professor's daughter—she's a sweet girl, it's unfortunate that she'll likely be subdued into a silent, spineless wisp of a thing under the iron wills of her brother and aunts—but ignores the rest. He doesn't care what any of these people think of him now and he sincerely hopes he never sees them again.

The driver closes the door and they're off, the entire Williams clan left in the dust behind them, along with an entire chapter of Tim's life.

"Geez, what a bunch of cold fish," the driver says. "I know they're your in-laws, but I've never seen so many unpleasant people in one place before, and I say this as a someone who spent a week in boarding school, once upon a time."

"They don't really like anyone who isn't exactly like them," Tim agrees. "It was very thoughtful of the duke to send his car for me." The truth of the matter is that he never expected much more from the cousin than a small loan to tide him over until he found another position. Certainly nothing so grand a gesture as being taken into the cousin's own home. Which is apparently a manor, of all things. Since Mother's cousin is the _duke_ of _Gotham_.

The driver laughs. "Truth time. The duke doesn't even know you're coming yet, he's been in Metropolis for most of the last month and hasn't seen your letter."

"The duke didn't send you?" Tim grabs the side of the car, panic racing through him.

"Hey, it's like I said, the duke would've come himself—if he knew. But he didn't, so here I am. Hell, I wouldn't've even known to come if Dick hadn't clued me when I stopped by for a visit."

"'Dick'?"

"Dick's my idiot brother. You may know him better as Detective Grayson."

The detective? Why would he send his brother to get Tim? A sick sort of queasiness overtakes Tim as he wonders just who it is he got into a car with. "Who are you? Do you even know the duke?"

The driver laughs. "I should say I do! Sorry, I thought you knew." Tossing Tim a rakish smile, he bobs his head in a mock bow. "I'm Jason Todd, the duke's second son. So your cousin as well, I suppose."

 

* * *

 

The first few weeks in the duke's home are relaxed and not anywhere near as terrifying as Tim anticipated, in part because a good part of the household is engaged elsewhere—the duke and duchess are abroad and most of the duke's various children and wards are in the city, either working or attending the university. Only Jason and the duke's youngest son remain at the manor when classes are in session; Jason to work on whatever great masterpiece he's in the midst of penning, while his brother Damian is still too young to attend any institution of high learning, being just on the cusp of presenting.

At first, he tries to stay out of the way of both brothers, hiding in the room he's been given, struggling to force himself to read the adverts in the paper and writing to inquire about those openings that look promising. The duke's children may have their father's wealth to fall back on, but Tim has no such luxury, and he is hesitant to put too much trust in the charity of others.

This self-assigned exile doesn’t last for long, however. By Tim's third day at the manor, Jason is seeking him out, demanding his opinion on a particular passage. The next day, he comes again, this time with a foreign text he insists would be crucial to his work—if only it were in a language he could understand. It goes on like this, Jason finding excuses (and Tim doesn't doubt that's what they are) to invade his sanctuary. As days bleed into weeks, he goes one step further, drawing Tim out of his room entirely, first to the manor's very impressive library and, as the weather turns colder and Tim confesses to never having engaged in a snowball fight as a child, out onto the manor grounds where Damian and a large hound frequently join them.

It's… different. Nothing like what he expected from what little his mother told him of life among the nobility of the land. More than once, he sees Jason pull Damian in close and rub his chin against the top of the boy's head. It could just be a gesture of affection between siblings, but it stirs up old memories in Tim, memories of watching Mrs. Mac scent-marking her children before sending them off to school each day. It is certainly not a gesture his parents ever felt the need to practice with him.

He pushes the thought away—by his own admission, Jason was adopted into the duke's family rather than being born into it, so it could be he still retains certain bad habits from his childhood—and instead focuses on enjoying their shared time together. A brief respite before the duke returns and Tim is informed he has more than overstayed his already-questionable welcome.

And, the strange thing is, he _is_ enjoying himself. For the first time in what feels like years, Tim finds himself looking forward to getting up in the morning, to doing more with with his day than lying in bed, staring at the wall, waiting for death to take him. He's laughing, smiling, actually feeling happy. It feels impossible and amazing. He'd forgotten he could actually feel this good.

Which means, of course, it can't possibly last.

 

* * *

 

A month after Tim's arrival at the manor, the duke and his new duchess return from their honeymoon, and all of the duke's children come from the city to welcome him home. To say Tim finds the crowd overwhelming borders on understatement.

Where the rest of the family and household rush to greet the couple as they climb out of the motor car, Tim hangs back, watching with more than a little trepidation. He now knows that the duke hasn't seen his letter—which had, in fact, arrived at the manor after he himself—may not even know of the presence of a guest in his household unless Detective Grayson took it upon himself to telegraph his father in addition to sending his brother.

The duke had said to contact him if Tim ever needed anything. But that was years ago, and it isn't likely the man remembers such a distant relative, let alone a flippant, spur-of-the-moment comment.

So he hangs back, pulling his coat more tightly around himself, feeling inexplicably cold in spite of the warm winter sun shining down. Some yards away, the duke pulls each of his children into tight embraces and allows them to scent him even as he scents them in return.

There's a cold lump in Tim's chest, encasing his heart and slowly growing outward, squeezing his lungs. He can't watch this display of affection and familial love any longer.

He's just turning to go back inside when Jason calls his name and the whole crowd sways in Tim's direction. It's too much all at once—the blatant display of pack, the people, even the cheerful sun up above. He means to leave, to save himself the embarrassment of being the focus of so much attention, but the lump in his chest has grown too large, is choking him and stopping him from drawing breath, stopping blood from reaching to his limbs as they turn all tingly despite the too-fast beat of his heart.

Suddenly, Jason is there, helping him crouch down and put his head between his knees. Somehow, impossibly, it's easier to breathe like that.

"Breathe, Tim. Breathe. You're alright," Jason murmurs, his hand running lightly along Tim's back. The touch is completely inappropriate, but it's weirdly anchoring and reassuring at the same time. "Everything is fine. Just breathe."

Minutes pass, but Jason doesn't go anywhere. Eventually, Tim finds his voice again. "Sorry," he gasps, his chest still feeling more than a little tight. "I don't know what came over me."

"It can be overwhelming, all of them at once. Dick alone has the energy of at least three people."

"He didn't seem so bad to me. When I met him before."

"He had a murder to solve then. Come on, they're all going to be a while. We can sneak inside while Cassandra distracts them with her news." Jason reaches for Tim's hand, stopping himself just in time. He offers his arm instead.

Grateful for the excuse to escape, Tim takes it, relishing the feeling of warm, solid muscle under the cloth. "News?"

"Mmhm. She and Harper—her fiancée, you know—snuck off to see a judge while Bruce was gone. They haven't said anything, but I suspect I'm going to be an uncle again."

 

* * *

 

The duke is home for nearly a week before he calls Tim to his office. For his part, Tim has been walking on eggshells ever since the duke's return, trying his hardest to keep quiet and stay out of the way of both the duke and his lady wife. Jason keeps asking him if he's feeling ill, and Tim wouldn't be surprised if the unease he feels over his uncertain future is evident on his face. When he receives the duke's summons, his stomach twists and he only just barely stops himself from being sick all over Alfred's shoes.

It likely doesn't help matters that the last time he was summoned like this it was so his father could inform him of Tim's impending marriage.

The furniture in the duke's office is much finer than that in Father's, but otherwise the space looks much the same, like a room that sees frequent, regular use. The near-familiarity serves to put Tim somewhat at ease, enough so that feels he makes a fair show of normality as he takes the seat opposite the duke.

"So, Timothy," the duke begins, then stops when he notices Tim about to speak. "Yes?"

"I generally go by Tim? Though, of course, if you'd prefer to use Timothy, that's fine too." It's a silly thing to concern himself over, and he's already mentally kicking himself for bringing it up at all. The duke just smiles.

"Ah, my mistake. Jason told me as much and then I forgot. My apologies. Of course you should use whatever name makes you most comfortable." He beams, but something about his smile doesn't exactly reach his eyes. Tim finds himself wondering if the duke ever truly forgets anything. There's an element of calculation to both the duke's speech and behavior that reminds Tim of his mother in a rather uncomfortable manner.

It was never a good idea to leave Mother waiting, so he swallows down his uneasiness and quickly bobs his head in agreement. "Yes, sir, of course."

"Dick told me what he knew of your situation and, of course, I have your letter." The letter that lies open on the desk between them. Tim struggles to recall what he wrote in it, but he was rather out of sorts at the time and all that comes to mind is a polite reminder of the duke's offer of help seven years ago.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "I apologize for the imposition. It's only until I can find a new position for myself. I will, of course, be more than happy to repay any debt I should incur once I am able." Guilt ties Tim's stomach into knots. He hasn't seriously sought employment in weeks, allowing Jason to distract him with frivolous pastimes.

The duke waves away these concerns. "None of that, now. You're family, you must stay as long as like, of course. Besides, it isn't as if you should be in any great hurry to go out on your own, you still have more than half a year before you come of age, I believe."

"Well, yes, but I should think that my marriage precluded that from being an issue?" Tim hasn't even thought to consider the fact that he has yet to turn twenty-one. The very idea that he could still be considered a child after being be married and subsequently widowed seems more than a little preposterous.

"I don't make the laws, it is just my privilege to uphold and enforce them. The law says you are the responsibility of your pack leader until you turn twenty-one years of age. Your guardianship simply transferred from your husband to me upon his death."

"You aren't my pack leader any more than the professor was."

"Mm, yes. Dick mentioned you hadn't joined your husband's pack. It was one of the reasons he felt justified in sending Jason to fetch you in my name."

"I don't know why Detective Grayson was concerned. It isn't necessary for betas to have a pack; I've done fine without one for years." He's seen how the duke behaves with his own pack—because, despite everything Mother taught him, her cousin most certainly engages in pack behavior, despite having some of the bluest blood in all the land. Just like every other family he's ever witnessed outside of his own. Now that Tim understands that his entire childhood was just one lie after another, he's hardly going to admit to it.

"True enough. I would never wish to force pack ties on any who didn't want them. But, should you desire to join another pack, keep in mind you will always be welcome in the Wayne Pack."

"Thank you, sir. I'll do that," Tim says, his heart beating a little too fast in his chest. He's spent the majority of his life wishing for the camaraderie and companionship of pack portrayed in the novels he's read. But now that he finally has a chance, he knows he can't take the duke up on his offer. You have to be able to scent and be scented in return to join a pack, and the ashenweed means Tim will never be capable of either.

 

* * *

 

" _Ja—!_ "

He wakes up flushed and overheated, his skin prickling still from nonexistent touches, lips tingling from phantom kisses. The dream was unlike any he's ever had, full of warmth and comfort, strong arms holding him close and cradling. Tim didn't need the half-spoken name on his lips upon waking to know who the dream was about, but without it he might've lived in denial just a little longer. Might've put off acknowledging the strange and unsettling way he feels drawn to Jason.

Attraction isn't something he's ever had to deal with in the past. When he was younger and regularly interacted with his father's students, he could tell that some were more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than others, or that a select few had particularly nice scents about them, but it was never anything more than that. Certainly, he never felt anything approaching the desire described in the the novels he's read.

Tim had always assumed his lack of interest was due to his already knowing that none of those people could possibly be his mark-match. Others might need scent or looks to narrow down their options so they don't have to check the marks of every person they come across, looking for a match. He might not know the identity of his match, but he'll also never need to look for them.

Still feeling somewhat unsettled in his skin, he starts to roll out of bed when he feels a dampness between legs. Tim's heart is in his throat as he lifts first the covers and then his nightshirt. He's half-hard, which is strange enough, but his thighs are damp with slick and that, that should not be possible. He's been drinking the ashenweed tea for long enough and in large enough amounts to make _sure_ that can't be possible.

His stomach roils and now Tim practically falls out of bed in a rush to get to the washbasin before he can be sick all over the bed. He makes it in time, barely, and the little left in his stomach from the night before all comes up. Clutching the basin to his chest, he sinks to the floor, trying to shove his panic aside long enough to think this through and figure out what he needs to do next.

Slick carries with it the scent of an omega's arousal. Not as strong as a heat scent, but certainly more than a usual, baseline omega scent. But he headed off his first heat, has been using the ashenweed to cling to his neutral child scent for as long as possible—could his slick retain that same neutral smell instead of one of rot and decay?

Tim inhales deeply, hoping to get some sense of what his scent is like, but all he gets is the acrid odor of the bile in the basin he's still holding. He has no way of knowing if the absence of rot is due to his retaining his child scent or the ashenweed in his system completely dulling his senses.

All he can do is struggle to his feet and stagger over to the window, flinging it open despite the bitter winter chill. Hopefully the breeze currently whistling through the eaves will be enough to drag out any lingering stench. In the meantime, he'll isolate himself in this room for the day and claim illness. If he scrubs hard enough, he might even get it all off with the duke and his family being none the wiser.

He busies himself with all of this, stubbornly refusing to spare a single thought to the dream and the man that got him into this mess in the first place.

 

* * *

 

Following his scare, Tim increases the amount of ashenweed he adds to his morning cup of tea. The thought that the tea might be losing its efficacy is a terrifying one and not something he can risk, especially since he has yet to find a new position for himself.

The matter of Jason is a more complicated one. Tim is still confused by his apparent attraction to the man, particularly as he has no experience with any similar sentiments in the past. All he can think is his subconscious mind got all muddled up and confused "friend" with "lover." Which, when he considers that Jason is perhaps the first person in his life to earn the distinction of being his friend, is a somewhat-understandable mistake.

He shoves the already-fading memory of dream touches from his mind and firmly reminds himself that all of his feelings for the duke's second son are firmly platonic in nature. It's that or ceasing contact with the other man entirely, and while he was content to go without friends for the first twenty years of his life, he finds himself loath to give up this small piece of social interaction now that he's experienced it. Never mind that he suspects Jason initiated the friendship at the request of his older brother; Tim would like to think it's developed into something deeper and more meaningful than an olive branch of pity.

He continues to spend the majority of his days in Jason's company, sometimes arguing authorial intent or providing translations as needed. Oftentimes simply sitting in each other's company, either reading or working, Jason working on his manuscript while Tim unearths his scrawled plans for an information-storage device. For the first time in ages, he feels inspired, like his scribblings might actually have some merit.

 

* * *

 

"Would you ever write a story with an unhappy ending?" They're sitting in the manor's library, Jason scribbling away on his manuscript, Tim ostensibly translating an article from a foreign technical manual the duke expressed an interest in. In reality, he keeps getting distracted by the small, happy noises Jason makes when he's deep in the throes of the creative process.

Jason doesn't glance away from his work, just nods his head. "Sure, I do that all the time."

"What about a love story where the protagonist never meets their mark-match?"

"Not really an unhappy ending, that, since you know they'll meet at some point in the future, after the end of the story."

Tim swallows. Licks his lips. "No, I mean. Where the protagonist dies, but never meets their match."

The hurried movement of Jason's pen stills and he finally turns his attention to where Tim's sitting. "What, do you mean like a markless protagonist? Huh. Could be interesting, following a markless character when everyone else in the world has a mark."

It's not surprising that Jason should jump to that solution. Legends of markless people have been circulating for thousands of years, but there's never been any definite, documented proof that any have ever existed. But it's still not what Tim was driving at with his initial proposal. "No, they'd have a mark, they just never meet their match in their lifetime."

Jason is already shaking his head, and Tim can feel his stomach twisting. "No one would ever go for it, too far-fetched. I'd have better luck writing about men from the moon than someone dying with an unmatched mark." He hums, tapping the end of his pen against his chin, clearly lost in thought—perhaps actually considering the premise? But then he says, "Now, if the protagonist's match didn't find them until the hero was on their deathbed…"

"Never mind," Tim says shortly, turning back the technical journal. "You're right. It was a silly idea. No one would ever believe it."

 

* * *

 

The topic comes up after the duke hurries from the luncheon table one afternoon, insisting his lady wife is unwell. Damian rolls his eyes and excuses himself shortly after his father—he rarely sees the need to engage in social niceties when the duke is absent—leaving just Tim and Jason alone at the table. Jason keeps eating like nothing's happened, but Tim is still stuck on, "How does he know?"

Swallowing, Jason turns his attention to him. "Come again?"

"How can the duke know Lady Selina is feeling poorly? Isn't she visiting friends in the city today?"

"Yes, but they're mark-matches," Jason says, acting like that's an actual explanation.

"So? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, you know how it is. Feeling it when your match experiences a strong emotion or becomes distressed."

Tim snorts. "Please, like any rational human being would believe something so ridiculous. Come on, what was it really?" Mrs. Mac never mentioned anything about being able to feel what your match felt. Though Jason seems honestly surprised that Tim doesn't believe him—maybe it's just one of those things Mrs. Mac didn't feel like sharing, just chuckling and telling him he'd understand when he had a mark of his own?

Jason stares at him, setting down his knife and fork. "You've never felt anything from your mark-match?"

"No, I…" Tim trails off, remembering pain so intense it blinded him. "Maybe, once. But it wasn't really an emotion, just pain."

But Jason's nodding now, so maybe that counts. "Sometimes you can feel physical things. Like Bruce knowing that Selina's feeling under the weather."

"It was only the one time." Because Tim had only just started to get his mark, and it wasn't like he could feel anything, after. Not when there was no longer another person on the other end of the connection.

"I used to get things from my match all the time when I was younger, but then it just stopped one day. All I ever picked up from them before that was sadness and loneliness though, so I figure they finally made some friends." Jason shrugs, clearly unconcerned. "Not getting anything isn't necessarily bad. It just means that your match is keeping out of trouble."

"Yes," Tim says, because how much trouble can someone get into when they're dead? "I suppose you're right."

 

* * *

 

They're in the library, working side-by-side when they both turn to ask the other a question at the same time, just barely missing knocking their heads together. Jason stares down at him and Tim finds he can't remember what he was going to say.

"Tim," Jason says hoarsely, and the next thing Tim knows, it's like something out of that erstwhile dream, Jason ducking his head and leaning in. Closing the space between them.

He quickly shoves Jason away with all of his strength, though Jason's solidity means the resulting inertia does more to send Tim tumbling from his chair instead of moving Jason much of at all. "Why would you do that?" The words are barely a croak, Tim's throat feeling tight and sore with betrayal.

Jason, for his part, looks equally appalled by his actions. "God, I'm so sorry. You must think me a complete ass."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far," Tim says, though he refuses to take Jason's hand when the man offers it, instead grabbing the table and pulling himself upright on his own. "Though I certainly don't think much of you trying to kiss me with no prior warning."

"But you must know how I feel," Jason says, confusion clear on his face.

"No, how could I? You haven't said a thing." Feel? How can Jason possibly feeling anything for him? Friendship, perhaps—but desire? Lust? Impossible.

"The whole household knows. I've never been any good at masking my scent or my feelings. Even Damian's started complaining about my desire clogging up his nose even worse than that cold he's been whingeing about."

"I have a bad sense of smell," Tim admits. "I haven't scented anything off of you." Desire? For _him_?

"Oh. I thought you hadn't said anything because you were still in mourning."

"Mourning? Do you mean for the professor?" Tim isn't sure why anyone would expect him to mourn for longer than the expected month. "Hardly. I'm not about to wear widower's weeds for the rest of my life over _him_."

"But he was your mark-match, wasn't he?"

Tim instinctively wraps his hand around where his shirt hides the ugly scar on his wrist. "Excuse me?" He hasn't talked about his mark to anyone in the house, has certainly never mentioned that his match is deceased. "The professor wasn't my mark-match. My father arranged the marriage."

Jason's entire face seems to brighten at this news. "Really? That would explain so much."

"How so?"

"I think you're my match," Jason says excitedly. "I feel so completely at ease around you, can't stop thinking about you, and—"

"We're not matches," Tim says, not even trying to rein in the coldness that bleeds into his words. He feels weirdly betrayed. Despite that odd dream, Jason was supposed to be _safe_. Was supposed to be Tim's friend, the one nice thing he got to have since fate made the decision long ago that he doesn't deserve things like love or perfect happiness.

"You don't know that. You don't even know what my mark is."

"I know it doesn't match mine."

"Why? Do you already know who your match is?"

"No, but—"

"Then you can't possibly know we're not matches. Look," Jason says, tugging up his shirt cuff. "Are you _sure_ we're not matches?"

Tim stares at the perfectly formed feather on Jason's wrist and suddenly feels sick. It's beautiful and delicate and looks nothing like the misshapen blob that's all that remains of his own mark. He tightens the hand wrapped around his wrist and, for one brief moment, considers lying. Having a taste of all the happiness he was promised and will never get to have. Maybe he could convince Jason that even though they aren't matches, it could still work for the little time Tim has left.

Then he remembers himself. Remembers the constant, unspoken tension between his unmatched parents, remembers the maid whose love turned sour when her match refused to fully give himself to her. Remembers all the problems he himself has with ever being intimate with anyone—the horrible, awful scent of rotting flesh.

"I'm sure." Tim reluctantly lets go of his wrist and gathers up the papers he was working on. "Sorry."

He can't stay here, not in the library, not in this house. Not while he's willing to destroy yet another person's life just for the possible chance of little happiness. There are already enough corpses in Tim's wake. Jason doesn't need to join their number.

 

* * *

 

Tim isn't really thinking as he stumbles back to his room. No, not his room, just the room he's been allowed to stay in during his time here at the manor. The duke talked about Tim joining his pack, but realistically he knows that was never going to happen. Even if the duke had truly meant his offer and wasn't making it simply out of a sense of duty, there's no alpha that would accept a broken, rotten omega like him into their pack.

As it is, he has more than overstayed his welcome. He's begun to upset the balance of the pack and the household—though, granted, in a very unexpected manner—and he's mistakenly begun thinking of the manor as his home. It's past time for Tim to have taken his leave of the duke and his oddly welcoming brood. He'll fetch himself away to some isolated locale where no one knows who he is and the shame of such an abnormal individual as himself need never tarnish the reputation of a family that has shown him nothing but kindness.

It's for the best, really.

Tim stuffs just the essentials into a bag, leaving behind his books and trunk as both are more than he can carry on his own. He leaves the diagrams and scribblings as well, the very idea of trying to work on them without Jason's solid presence beside him is enough to turn his stomach. What's the point in wasting time designing useless machines that will never work anyway?

He writes a letter to the duke, thanking him for his generosity. Brews a cup of ashenweed since he doesn't know how long it'll be until he'll next has a chance. Then it's just a matter of settling in to wait for dark.

 

* * *

 

It's easy to sneak out of the manor with none the wiser once the night falls. Tim makes it nearly half a mile from the manor before the oppressive heaviness that's been weighing on him ever since he made his decision to leave becomes too much and he has to stop and lean his weight against a tree, panting for breath. It doesn't make sense; he's been quite active over the past several months, first engaging in epic snow fights with Jason and later on long treks across the duke's estate so Jason could show him things like animal burrows and early-blooming snowdrops.

But now Tim's chest feels tight and he has to struggle for each breath he draws in. His head has begun to pound and he begins to wonder if the ashenweed poisoning has finally caught up with him. It would be just his luck to expire here where anyone from the duke's family might chance upon him. He knows he needs to keep moving, this is just one more obstacle like all the rest in his life, but his legs refuse to do anything more than collapse beneath him. Pain overwhelming his head even as his vision bleeds into black, he sinks to the ground.

Tim's last thought is that death isn't really all that different from losing one's mark-match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please to be taking note of newly added "Happy Ending" tag. One more part to go!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sickbed woes, the end, etc.

Tim's moving when he wakes and he almost thinks he's dreaming again, the warm arms around him feel so familiar. But cold bites at his face and either the arms of the person carrying him are shaking or he can't stop shivering. Since the last thing he remembers is passing out in the snow, it's probably the latter.

Blinking his eyes against the bright moonlight shining down from above, he peers up at Jason's face. "Are you crying? Idiot."

"Shut up," Jason says, sounding weirdly scared, his voice trembling nearly as much as Tim is. "Just… shut up. God, what the hell were you thinking?"

"Couldn't stay." Of all people, Jason should realize exactly why Tim can no longer remain at the manor. Not after what passed between them in the library.

"You didn't have to go. I would have left, stayed with Duke in the city." Jason's gloved hand trembles as he oh-so-gently touches Tim's cheek. "You certainly didn't have to sneak out in the dead of night without telling anyone."

Tim would argue, but he's feeling sleepy again. He must lose some time, because when he next opens his eyes, he's lying in his bed at the manor and Jason is speaking frantically and loudly to someone. Hopefully not Tim, because the words are going too fast for him to even understand and on top of that, his head still hurts.

"Ow," Tim mumbles weakly, because it's easier than explaining about his head. It seems to do the trick, though, since Jason stops shouting. That's nice.

He blinks, and suddenly Jason is sitting in the chair next to the bed, his hand hovering dangerously close to Tim's forehead. Tim judiciously leans his head away as much as he can and the hand immediately retreats. Jason, however, does not.

"What."

"How are you feeling? Julia's fetching the doctor, but she won't be back for a while yet."

"Hurts," Tim says, which, yes, obvious. "My head," he clarifies. Frowns. "Don't need a doctor."

"I found you unconscious in the _snow_! We don't know how long you were out there for, or why you collapsed in the first place, or—!" Jason's volume gradually rises as he goes, but he stops as soon as he sees Tim wince. "Sorry," he says, soft and quiet.

"Wasn't long," Tim says, remembering the moon's position in the sky hadn't changed much between when he stopped and when he woke in Jason's arms earlier. "Outside, I mean."

"Well, thank heaven for small mercies," Jason says. "We still don't know what's wrong with you."

"Ashenweed poisoning. Probably." That extra evening cup was probably the straw that broke the camel's back. It’s unfortunate that Jason happened upon him when he did. If he hadn't, Tim might've easily frozen to death, which isn't a bad way to go, from what he's read on the subject.

Jason's head snaps upwards and he stares at Tim. "What are you doing, drinking ashenweed tea?" The color starts to drain from his face and he stutters out an awkward, "You don't—that is, have you—I mean, are you—"

"For goodness's sake, I don't have a lover, if that's what you're trying to ask," Tim snaps. "Not that it would be any business of yours if I did." Jason looks about ready to protest that, and this isn't a conversation Tim wants to have now, so he hurries to explain himself. "I have a medical condition."

"What kind of beta medical condition requires ashenween to treat it? That stuff is poison. It's what the—" Jason breaks off, color returning as his cheeks turn a lovely shade of pink and he refuses to meet Tim's gaze. "What the ladies and omegas around where I grew up used to take care of matters when they were. When they got in trouble."

Tim rolls his eyes. "I know what an abortion is, Jason."

"Oh, well. Still haven't answered my question."

"Because it's no one's business but my own," Tim says shortly, tugging the covers up and rolling over so his back is to Jason. "I'm tired. I'd like to sleep now." Somehow just saying it seems to render the words as truth, and he quickly slips into fevered, dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

 

The next time Tim wakes, there's an older woman holding his unmarked wrist and Jason is gone. He automatically tries to pull his hand free, but the woman has a firm grip and refuses to let go. "None of that now, Mr. Drake," she says, her tone stern and making clear that she will brook no argument on the matter.

Tim glares. He doesn't like anyone getting close enough to touch him under the best of circumstances and these are hardly those. "Excuse me, but who are you?"

"As I've explained before, I'm Doctor Thompkins."

"Before?" Just one word and he suddenly feels a lot less sure of things. He knows he's been losing time, but he'd thought they were just times when he'd passed out, not that he was losing actual memories.

The doctor sighs and lets go of Tim's wrist, then attempts what is likely her version of a sympathetic smile. He doesn't find it very reassuring at all. "You were running a rather high fever at the time. It's not surprising you don't recall."

He slowly nods his head, pulling his arm back in close. "And now?"

"Your fever appears to have broken and your pulse is no longer erratic. It was touch-and-go for a while there, but you'll pull through as expected and with minimal long-term damage. Though you may have some trouble conceiving outside of your heats for the next few years."

He grimaces, but he supposes it was too much to hope for that an actual doctor wouldn't take note of his sex when examining him. False scents can hide a lot, but nothing can change basic anatomy. Still, her words throw him, slightly. "As expected?" Tim's understanding was that once one reached the lethal saturation point, there wasn't anything that could reverse ashenweed poisoning.

"Of course. Couldn't have a strapping young man like yourself die before you've had a chance to meet your mark-match now, could we?" She smiles at him and he notices for the first time that while someone has changed his traveling clothes for his nightshirt, the cuff is buttoned up tight around his scarred wrist, hiding it from the doctor's view. Apparently her nosy examination of his unconscious self had some limits. She doesn't know.

"I see," Tim manages, tamping down all the words he wants to say, all the pain he wants to give voice to.

"Though I must insist you avoid ashenweed all together in the future, as inconvenient as that may be considering your sex. The lethal level has been thoroughly flushed from your system by the fever, but we wouldn't want to risk a relapse once you lose that little bit of protection fate's given you, would we?"

"No," Tim says, feeling hollow inside. "No, of course not."

 

* * *

 

Jason shows up almost as soon as the doctor leaves, having clearly been hovering in the corridor outside, waiting. "You're awake," he says as he settles back into the chair beside the bed.

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"No, I mean. I mean, you're awake and able to talk and not—" Jason gulps and clenches his hands into fists in his lap. "Doctor Thompkins said you might not really be you anymore, that the fever or the drug might've turned you queer in the head. Ashenweed is literally _poison_ , Tim, why would you ever put that in yourself?"

He doesn't want to talk about this, but Jason is his friend and he deserves to understand what's going to happen now that Tim's not allowed the ashenweed anymore. "My mother taught me that pack behavior was an archaic practice that the human race needed to move away from. I think she believed that a child raised without a pack would present as beta by default. Turns out, if you raise an omega without a pack, you don't get a beta, you just get a broken omega," he says quietly, half-hidden under the bed covers.

It takes a minute, but he can tell the exact moment the penny drops and Jason realizes exactly what is being said—the sharp inhale, the sudden cessation of restless shifting. "Tim, that's—you're not _broken_."

Tim snorts, burrowing deeper under the covers. "Wait a week and say that again. You know how everyone always says a packless omega is a dead omega? Turns out, that's only half-right. You're not actually dead, you just smell like you are, and guess what? No one wants to scent a rotting corpse, so you can't join a pack after you gain your adult scent. It's a no-win situation."

"Tim—"

"Just go away, Jason. You lost your chance to fix this when you didn't leave me in the snow."

 

* * *

 

Someone—Alfred, probably—keeps leaving trays of food while he's asleep. Tim doesn't mean to eat any of it, since what's the point in eating when you're dying anyway, but somehow he keeps clearing the trays.

Dying is surprisingly hungry work.

 

* * *

 

Weirdly, Tim finds he feels better and better as days pass. He's been drinking the ashenweed tea for so long that he'd completely forgotten how things smelled, hadn't even realized how much of taste is dependent on smell. Everything he eats now tastes _wonderful_.

Even stranger is that once he gets over feeling sorry for himself and his situation, he finds his plan to stay in bed until he inevitably succumbs to heat mania followed by death simply isn't feasible. For one thing, Tim's much too restless to do nothing but mope, his entire being vibrating with a kind of energy he hasn't felt in years.

Perhaps, he concedes, there is something to the theory that long-term ashenweed use can result in melancholia.

All of which is rather unfortunate, since if there was one thing all the texts he's studied agree upon, it's that packless omegas can't survive a heat.

 

* * *

 

Jason sends notes with Alfred's trays of food. Or, well. Not really _notes_ , but passages from novels, bits of foreign poetry, excerpts from plays and romances, all of them carefully copied out in Jason's elegant and curving script. Tim shouldn't pay them any mind, should leave them on the trays unread, but Jason treats every letter like a work of art and Tim can't help the way his heart beats faster whenever he sees something penned in Jason's hand.

On the seventh day, it's a thick stack of papers bound up with twine instead of a loose sheet or three. Tim's four pages in before he realizes it's not just something Jason copied out, it's the book he's been writing.

Tim goes back to the beginning and starts over again, this time paying attention to every word, every detail, every turn of phrase.

It takes him two days to read the entire thing. When he finishes, he ties the pages up again and leaves the sanctuary of his room.

If Jason can give him a piece of his soul, the least Tim can do is return the favor and explain himself.

 

* * *

 

Shockingly, the library is empty when he gets there. Tim immediately turns on his heel and doubles back, nearly running into Damian's governess as she exits the school room in a pungent cloud of not-quite cinnamon and something else.

Tim struggles to summon up an apology, still reeling from the intensity of the smells. He's been avoiding everyone for over a week now, and in that time the very last of the ashenweed must have finally left his system. He's been keeping the window in his room latched wide open except for during the chilliest part of the night in an effort to maintain some sort of control over the inevitable stench he knows he'll produce, but he'd forgotten that others would have scents as well, that he'd be able to smell them now.

The _something else_ under the governess's near-cinnamon clings to his nostrils as he hurries off to search for Jason elsewhere, nearly disappearing except for where it hovers on the edge of his senses. Sweet and tart at the same time, whoever's scent it is seems to be lingering in all the places Jason prefers to pass the time—the window seat in the east wing, the solarium, a surprisingly comfy chair tucked away in a corner of the kitchens. The smell is everywhere Jason should be but isn't, along with any number of other odors. The scents of the duke's entire household, woven together but also separate, and Tim can't help but wonder how he ever understood this family before when he was completely anosmic to such a fundamental aspect of it.

At last, his search takes him to the one place he's been hesitant to go. All of Jason's other haunts are in common areas, places Tim's been in the past and can excuse his presence in. This, though. Well.

It's hardly proper to visit a potential suitor in his bedchamber, but he's desperate. Enough time has passed and scents are getting strong enough that any minute now his body will start making its own rotten stench for all the world to smell. If he doesn't find Jason before that happens, if Jason is no longer in the house at all… If he's honest with himself, Tim really isn't sure if he'll be able to handle that.

He can't say how he knows which door is Jason's, how he even knows where to look for it in a place as large as the manor. Intuition, maybe. A sense of _rightness_. Steeling himself, he's just raising a hand to knock when the door swings inwards, revealing an impeccably tidy room and enveloping Tim in a comforting smell that's half-smoke, half-spice, and just a tiny hint of that odd tart-sweet.

"Mr. Drake," Jason says, sounding stiff and formal in ways he never has before.

"Oh," Tim says, momentarily left at a loss for words, because Jason smells anxious and relieved and happy and sad all in one big, jumbled mess and absolutely nothing like the way he looks.

"You wanted something?" Jason crosses his arms and glares, but doesn't stop smelling of relief and happiness.

"I wanted to give you back your book," Tim says, thrusting the manuscript at Jason's chest. "It was wonderful, and I…" He had an entire speech to give, about how he found the book absolutely enthralling, how the characters leapt off the page, how the story consumed him, how every word used was exactly the right one. All of it's escaping him now that Jason's right here, standing in front of him.

"You?" Jason prompts, taking the sheaf of papers and setting it aside.

"I love it," Tim says, because it's the closest he can bring himself to saying what really he wants to say.

"Well, hopefully my editor will too," Jason says, closing the door. "If that's all, I'm busy and really don't have time for—"

"Jason, wait!" Tim jams his foot in between the door and the frame, wincing in pain when it's inevitably pinched. "I owe you an explanation. For what I said before."

"You've made it very clear that you don't feel you owe me anything."

"I didn't…" Tim hesitates, instinctively wrapping his hand around his scarred wrist. "I do owe you. God knows how you found me out there in the snow, but you saved my life even after I rejected you. I crushed your heart when you bared it and you deserve to know the reason why."

Jason narrows his eyes for a moment, then snorts and shakes his head, stepping back and pulling the door wide open. "You want to talk, fine, we'll talk. But I'm not doing it out here in the hall where the brat can listen in on you airing all my secrets."

Tim's so grateful for the chance he's been given that he throws propriety out the window and steps into the room, allowing Jason to shut the door behind him. "They're my secrets too."

"More embarrassing for me. How many people find their match only to learn their match doesn't want them?"

"I already told you—I can't be your match. It's just not possible." No matter how much Tim might want it.

Jason leans back against the door and stares down at Tim, his face a mask. "You want to know how I found you in the snow? I felt you. I woke up in the middle of the night and knew you were in trouble, knew exactly where to find you. Even knowing that, will you still deny we're matches?"

Tim shakes his head. "I don't understand how you could know to come, but we can't be matches."

"I don't see why not, you've already said you don't know who your mark-match is, it could very well be me," Jason insists, shoving up his sleeve to once more bare his own mark.

"No," Tim says, glancing away, refusing to torture himself with something he'll never have. "It can't be you, it can't be anyone. My mark doesn't have a match."

"That's not—"

"You wanted to see my mark? It won't match yours, I promise," Tim interrupts. He doesn't want to do this, but Jason deserves the truth. Deserves to know why he needs to wait, needs to keep looking for his match. Heart racing, Tim unbuttons his shirt cuff and turns it up to show the scarred blob on his wrist. "It doesn't match anyone's. It never has and it never will."

"But that's… that's not possible." Jason stares at the scar. Ugly, misshapen. Grotesque. "It's a trick?"

Tim laughs, sharp and bitter. "It's not a trick. I wouldn't joke about this." He has many things to be ashamed of in his life—his inability to form pack bonds, his rotten heat scent, even the professor's death and the small, unfortunate part he played in it—but this is the worst of all of them. Everyone makes mistakes, but everyone in the world has a mark-match. Everyone but Tim.

"You met and lost your match while your mark was still forming?" Jason tries.

"I was completely alone the whole time. Unless you think they found the time to visit me and leave again while in their death throes?" Tim asks, more than a little meanly. His parents told him enough times that he must be wrong about his timeline, that he must be mistaken. Eventually, he accepted his parents' excuses and stopped talking about what happened, came to understand that no one would ever believe him. He doesn't expect Jason to now.

"You said it yourself—a person's match dying before they could ever meet is completely implausible." Tim shakes his head and turns to leave. "Somewhere in the world there's a match for you, but it was never me."

"…alone?"

Tim stops, glancing back to Jason. "Excuse me?"

"You were alone the whole time? God, and you said you only ever felt your mark-match once—all you ever felt was their death and you had to live through that _alone_?"

"Yes, it was an awful experience, but clearly survivable. What is your _point_ , Jason?"

"Your mark isn't even fully _formed_ , what the hell were you doing alone at the time? Where were your parents?"

"At one of my father's digs. I was twelve, I wasn't a child." He can't see how this is relevant, why Jason is focusing on a completely inconsequential part of the story.

"A twelve year old isn't an adult, Tim," Jason says. "There should have been someone minding you."

"Jason, I—" Tim stops. Frowns. Sniffs. "…what _is_ that?" He inhales again, deeper this time. In this enclosed space, the scent he noticed earlier is almost overwhelming.

"What's what?" Jason asks, sniffing. "I don't smell anything bad?"

"It's not bad, just intense. And, God, sweet and a little tart at the same time, like sour cherries, almost. Is that you?" He's never actually smelled Jason before, it could be him. Tim did keep catching whiffs of the scent around various places in the house Jason tends to frequent.

Jason stares at him. "Tim. That's _you_."

"Me? How can it be me? My scent was— _is_ completely different." Sure, the sweet-tart smell is nothing like the smokey-spice smell hovering around Jason, but it surely can't be _Tim_. "I smell like something rotten."

"Yeah, you mentioned that before, but you've never smelled that way to me." Jason frowns and leans back, thinking. "I mean, for the first few weeks you were here you smelled more minty, but I figured that was residual from your last pack."

"Haven't you heard a word word I've said? I've never _had_ a pack, Jason! That mint smell? That was artificial. That was—was perfume, basically. Me faking a scent because the ashenweed meant I didn't have one!"

Jason shrugs. "Hey, I don't know anything about that, but you've smelled like sour cherries to me for months now. Usually pretty faint, but it's a lot stronger now."

"It can't be me," Tim mutters, though he's increasingly thinking Jason might be right. If his scent changed a few weeks after he got to the manor, that would be around the time the duke returned and offered him a place in the Wayne Pack. Would that alone be enough for his body to decide it was no longer packless?

"It's a simple enough thing to check." Suddenly, Jason leans forward, bending over so his face is right up next to Tim's.

"What are you doing?" Tim demands, shivering at Jason's closeness and at the same time terrified of moving, lest he accidentally touch Jason.

"Relax," Jason murmurs, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and using it to carefully pull aside the hair hiding Tim's scent gland. Impossibly, Jason rests a hand on his arm and leans in even closer, so little space between them that Tim can feel the warmth of Jason's breath on his neck.

Jason inhales deeply, and Tim automatically reaches out to grab Jason's arm and ground himself, he feels so dizzy with the smell of smokey-spicy- _Jason_. "Yeah, that's you alright. Sweet with a bit of a kick."

When he pulls back, Jason's nose brushes ever-so-slightly against Tim's neck and suddenly there's a strange prickling sensation running down his neck, like thousands of tiny ants crawling through his veins, swarming along his arm to his wrist. On his arm, Jason's hand tightens, fingers digging into the muscle under the sleeve. Someone gasps, though Tim can't rightly say which of them it is. Perhaps both.

"What did you—"

"Tim, your wrist," Jason says, and when he follows Jason's gaze he sees something creeping across the stark white scar tissue.

His heart rate, already faster than usual from Jason's presence, Jason's proximity, ratchets up another notch to the point where he honestly fears it will either burst out of his chest or give up entirely. Since Tim's frozen in place, on the verge of a heart attack, it falls to Jason to turn Tim's wrist over and see what the hell is going on there.

"Huh." Jason stares at it, turning the hand this way and that, completely ignoring any kind of properness and putting his bare hands all over Tim's. "Will you look at that. One for the scholars, I'm sure."

The dark brown of a matched mark is slowly blooming up from under the scar tissue, carefully feeling out a shape, lining itself up with the small piece of smooth, shaped scar at the end opposite Tim's palm.

"That's your mark," Tim says dumbly.

"Yours too, now." Jason laughs, breathless and relieved.

"I don't understand. How are you doing this?" As far as he's aware, you can't _make_ someone your match no matter how much you both want it. But what other explanation is there?

"Me? It's your mark. Told you we were matches."

"Yes, but—"

But then Jason kisses him and Tim forgets about arguing in general for a good long while.

 

* * *

 

When Tim stumbles back onto the bed and tries to pull Jason after him, Jason resists, shaking his head. "We can't. This is—god, you're my _match_ and we're in my bedroom _alone_ with the door _closed_."

Tim pants and tries to wrap his head around Jason's refusal, all the while endeavoring to tamp down on the whine that's crawling up at the back of his throat, threatening to break free. Bedroom. Alone. Right. Still... "The only people around to be scandalized are part of your pack and they're hardly going to tell anyone what we get up to behind closed doors."

" _Tim_ ," Jason says desperately. "We aren't even _married_."

"Well, I was married for over two and a half years and nothing ever happened, so I'm due to share _someone's_ bed," Tim snaps. Though, to be honest, the itchy-anxious feeling under his skin is bleeding away more and more as this conversation progresses.

"Not married to me. For God's sake, Tim, you're an _omega_ and Doctor Thompkins said you can't have ashenweed ever again. Be reasonable."

"Can't have it after I find my match," Tim corrects him, more to be ornery than anything else as he pulls himself up into a sitting position.

Jason grabs Tim's wrist, yanking it up so that the weirdly-dark mark there is side-by-side with Jason's own. "And what do you think this is?"

"A very clever trick. Probably." Because the more Tim thinks about it, the more he realizes that's what it has to be. "My mark-match is dead, you are not. Ergo, you cannot be my mark-match. Simple."

"It's not always that simple." Jason sits down on the bed beside him, putting plenty of space between them but not letting go of Tim's hand. "Everyone says that a person's mark scars when their match dies. Nothing ever mentions what happens if their match doesn't stay dead."

Tim draws away, tries to pull back his hand, but Jason just tightens his grip, refuses to let go. "Jason, what are you talking about? People don't come back from the dead."

"Your match died when your mark was still coming in… That must have been, what? Eight years ago, about? Early autumn."

"Yes," Tim says slowly. "How…?"

"You were supposed to come stay with Bruce that year, weren't you?"

"Yes, but something happened and he rescinded the offer. Jason, what does this have to do with anything?"

"There was a thunderstorm."

The entire afternoon leading up to that horrible blinding pain is forever burned into Tim's memory. "…yes," he says softly. "A few miles away. I was watching the lightning when it—" He stops, swallows. Glances down at the scar on his wrist, briefly thrown by the mark he still isn't used to seeing there. "When they died."

"So was I," Jason says. "But the storm was right above us and, idiot that I was, I went up on the manor roof to watch."

"Jason," Tim says shakily. "What are you saying?"

"Lightning struck me twice before Dick managed to haul me inside again," Jason says. "The doctor said my heart stopped, that I was actually dead for a good five minutes, that the only reason I was still alive was because I hadn't met my match. It took ages for me to recover. That's why Bruce told his cousin her son couldn't come stay with us, why I couldn't go to the cousin's funeral when she died less than a year later."

"I never knew," Tim admits. "The duke's letter just said there was an accident. I didn't… I wasn't really paying attention to much of anything at the time."

"My mark saved my life," Jason says, closing the distance between them. "But I never once thought how it must have affected my match. Technically, I died without ever meeting them."

"Oh." Tim's vision goes blurry and he. Can't quite remember how to breathe. "I. I don't."

"Hey. Hey, it's okay," Jason says, tugging him close and just. Holding him. Rubbing his back and it shouldn't help, not really, but somehow just having Jason touch him makes it easier for Tim to breathe again. "God, Tim. I'm so sorry. I should have tried to find you, should have realized."

Tim sniffs and shakes his head. "No, it's. How would you even know where to look?"

"I could still feel what you felt. I would have found you somehow. That's how it's supposed to work."

"Yes, well." He presses his face into Jason's solid chest, breathes in his smokey, spicy scent. "It wasn't the right time. It's all fate, isn't it?"

"I don't know about fate. I would've wanted you even if you weren't my match."

Glancing upwards, he draws back enough to see Jason's face. "Well, that could be fate. I mean, I fell in love with you and I never even suspected you could be mine."

"How about we agree to disagree." Jason runs his hand down Tim's back again, then sighs. "We really can't stay here. Not if we're courting."

"Just a little longer. Let's... just sit here a little longer."

Jason doesn't say anything, but his hand travels up to rest in Tim's hair, pulling him back in again.

 

* * *

 

They agree to a long courtship, because they're both leery of jumping into anything too quickly. Tim knows his own caution stems from the chilliness he saw in his parents' marriage as well as the disaster that was his first marriage. Jason is reluctant to speak of his life before he became the duke's ward, but the occasional comment leads Tim to suspect his mark-match's parents weren't much happier than Tim's own.

Then, just days after their mutual confessions in Jason's room, Tim's first full heat comes. It falls to Lady Selina to help him through it, since she's head omega of the Wayne Pack. But while her sweet cotton scent is calming—more so than ever, in fact, as her pregnancy progresses—he finds the entire experience horrible. Tim refuses to repeat such a humiliating experience a second time with anyone other than his match, and as soon he is fit to be around others once more, he seeks out Jason and proposes.

Jason, thankfully, accepts.

They inform the duke of the engagement immediately, Tim clinging to Jason's hand while he lets Jason do all the talking. The duke may be his pack leader now, but Tim is still learning what that means exactly and all he knows is that, as his guardian, the man is also an obstacle to be overcome.

"A spring wedding," Tim pipes up once Jason's finished. He's pleased by how steady his voice is, even if he is quaking in his shoes.

"That's taking things rather quickly, don't you think?"

"A spring wedding," Jason says. "April at the latest, or we'll go to a country where no one cares about Tim's age."

The duke looks vaguely wounded by this declaration. "Mid-May, and you'll have a proper ceremony in Gotham Cathedral."

Tim's heart leaps into his throat, nearly choking him, and he squeezes Jason's hand more tightly. The cathedral is huge. A full ceremony befitting Jason's rank as the duke's son would mean hundreds of people, all of them looking at him. Jason glances down and gives him a reassuring smile. "The small chapel attached to the cathedral, family only. But there can be a reception after at one of the hotels."

The duke takes several minutes to consider the offer, but finally shakes on it.

After they leave the duke's office, Tim continues to cling to his now-fiancé. "Why did you do that? A full reception still means hundreds of people, and I can't handle that. I know I can't, I'll have another episode, I'm sure of it."

"Shh, I know, relax," Jason murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of Tim's head. "Bruce is feeling all out of sorts because Cassandra cheated him out of a big to-do after stretching her engagement out for years. He needs an excuse to preen and show off his pack to everyone; it's a lead-alpha thing."

Pack dynamics are still mostly a mystery to Tim, so he has to take Jason at his word on this. But he still doesn't like it. "I can't do it," he repeats. Just the thought of all those people makes his chest tighten to the point where it's laborious to breathe.

"I'll be there with you the whole time. Don't worry yourself, I'll make sure it's not too much."

It's difficult to put faith in much of anything after having had so many disappointments and been told so many lies throughout his life. But Jason has never given Tim cause to doubt him, and the newly reformed bond between them is chiding him, reminding him that Jason is _safety_ and _love_. "Alright," he says, his words muffled as Jason pulls him close. "But if you mess this up, I'll never forgive you."

"And I wouldn't want you to." The words should sound flippant, but they speak sincerity to all of Tim's senses, and he finds himself relaxing into the comforting embrace of spice and smoke.

 

* * *

 

The ceremony is still larger than Tim really feels comfortable with, even though it's just the Wayne pack and a handful of close family friends filling the pews of the chapel. When Lady Selina inquired about the bridal party, Tim was at a loss. Although he's slowly coming to know his new pack, Jason is still the only person Tim can truly call a friend, and he can hardly ask his fiancé to stand as his best man as well as the groom. So Calpurnia is there as well, since she is technically still Tim's stepdaughter, and she alone of the Williamses always treated him with respect and kindness.

It's still too many people. Tim barely hears any of what the priest says, instead focusing on the anchoring weight of Jason's hand in his, the soothing, reassuring smell of Jason beside him. Their joined hands have already earned them an offended look from the priest, but Tim doesn't care—or at least he doesn't care enough to let go of that small bit of comfort.

As it is, he doesn't notice most of the ceremony, and Jason has to nudge his foot when it's time for 'I do's and the exchange of rings. Tim fumbles and nearly drops it when Damian passes it to him, but Jason is there, steadying his arm, keeping Tim from making an utter fool of himself. The rings slide on and it's done. They're married.

Jason takes a step closer, lifting the veil that's Tim's one visible concession to traditional bridal wear and tucking it back over the orange blossom wreath. "You would've looked beautiful in the dress I know Selina had you try on," Jason murmurs, tilting Tim's chin up.

"I would've fallen flat on my face," Tim corrects him. "The last time I wore a dress, you were in short pants."

His new husband looks ready to argue, but Tim closes the space between them, surging up onto his toes to press their lips together. Jason wraps an arm around his middle, pulling him in and deepening the kiss, no care at all that a number of the most notable people in Gotham are there, watching them.

When Tim finally manages to pull free, Jason is frowning, his hand rubbing at Tim's waist. "Tim. What's this?" he asks, his thumb pressing into whalebone, stiff even under several layers of cloth.

Ah, so he's found it. "Let's just say that while I may not have worn the dress, I didn't eschew _every_ piece of the bridal ensemble the duchess tried to press on me," Tim tells him, feeling more than a little smug. "If you want to know more than that, you'll have to wait until this evening."

Jason’s eyes flash in the dim light of the chapel and, growling, he ducks his head to capture Tim’s mouth in another kiss, this one is even more searing than the last. 

Tim can't find it in himself to complain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, folks! ~~Unless I write the wedding night as an epilogue or something.~~ It's been a wild ride, thanks for sticking with me through it all. :D There may be deleted scenes or headcanons or such posted on tumblr in the next few days, we'll see.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding night. (It's 90% porn, okay.)

He half-expects Jason to have arranged for some kind of get away for them so they can avoid the reception entirely, but apparently Tim's mark-match was serious about assuaging the duke's alpha instincts. Or maybe he just couldn't think of a way to duck the eagle eyes of his—their—pack.

The reception is just as bad as Tim thought it would be. Worse, even, since notables have been invited from surrounding lands in addition to Gotham. Nearly the entire ruling family of Metropolis, the marquess of Star, a whole gaggle of princesses from Themyscira, and any number of others. It would seem that more than a few of them are close personal friends of the duke, and that's not even counting the Tamaranian royal family, apparently actual relations of the duke by way of Detective Grayson's wife.

Some member of Tim's new pack must have had a few discrete words with a number of these notables, since most only come to congratulate the newlyweds one or two at a time. It does much to ease the overwhelming nature of the situation, though he remains pressed close to Jason's side the whole time, half-hiding his face against his husband's solid chest and inhaling the calming scent of spice and smoke. He doesn't doubt he presents the very picture of a shy omega, dependent on his mate for all things. Any other time he would be disgusted with his own behavior, but at the moment it's the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

When the musicians that have been providing a subtle backdrop to the proceedings increase their volume and begin the transition to a piece more suited for dancing, he shoots Jason a panicked look. The duchess warned him that the bride and groom would take to the floor for the first dance of the evening. Tim has been practicing with Jason under her watchful eye for the past several weeks, but now that the moment has finally come, he knows he won't be able to do it. Being the focus of so much attention was bad enough when it was only a couple dozen people during the ceremony in the chapel. Now their audience numbers in the several hundreds.

"I can't. Jason, I _can't_ —" he hisses, his throat already feeling tight as his stomach seems to drop to somewhere near his knees and his heart begins to race.

"Shh." Jason takes his arm and coaxes him to wobbly feet. For one awful moment, Tim fears he's being led out to the dance floor, but then Jason turns and tugs him behind a curtain and through a door. "Don't worry. I've already spoken to Cassandra and she and Harper have agreed to take this duty for us. This whole party is half for them anyway, and I didn't think you wanted to be the center of—" He breaks off as Tim surges forward, pushing up on his tiptoes and kissing him soundly.

"Thank you," Tim says, more than a little breathless when he pulls away some minutes later. He glances back at the door they just came through. The sounds of the celebration are muffled, but he thinks the first dance may be coming to a close. "We still have to go back? Once they finish?"

"Well." Jason clears his throat, tugs at his tie. "Seems to me if we went back now we'd be asking them to make us take the floor. Best to beat a hasty retreat while we can."

Tim can't help the sigh of relief that escapes him. "We still have to drive back to the manor, though." A pleasant enough trip and one that he usually enjoys, just as he enjoys any trip in the duke's motor car, but now that he has Jason alone for the first time since the official start of their courtship, he's loathe to waste any time on frivolities such as travel.

"Already ahead of you," Jason says, producing a key from his jacket pocket.

"A room in the hotel?" Tim guesses, his spirits lifting at the prospect.

"I thought we might like a little privacy away from the pack for our first night, and it hardly makes sense to drive back to the manor when our ship tomorrow leaves from the docks on the opposite side of the city."

Tim can't really be faulted for needing to back his husband up against the wall and kiss him again at this news. Such gallantry deserves reward, after all.

 

* * *

 

In all honesty, Tim doesn't really remember how they make it from that back hallway to the hotel room, being rather preoccupied with Jason's very distracting mouth for most of it. His husband must pick up his slack and take the time to steer them in the right direction though, since they're soon stumbling across a threshold, the door slamming shut behind them.

"God, you have all those idiots downstairs well and truly fooled with your charade of a prim and proper bride," Jason gasps, pulling back to catch his breath and check that the door is latched.

Tim takes the moment to kick off his shoes and remove his jacket, laying it over a nearby chair before tugging Jason towards the bed. "Come on," he says, an insistent whine building up from deep inside him and coloring his words with an embarrassing sort of desperation. "You no longer have the excuse that we aren't married."

"It was never an excuse, just a desire to not see you shamed by doing something you'd later regret. You were on the cusp of your heat, before," Jason tells him, loosening his tie and removing his cufflinks. Heaven knows where Tim's tie and links went—he thinks they disappeared somewhere between the party and the room, possibly into Jason's jacket pocket.

"My next heat isn't for at least another month, but your morals better not stop you then either," Tim warns. A large part of why they rushed their courtship was so he could avoid another heat without his mark-match, after all.

The backs of his legs hit the foot of the bed and he sits down on instinct. This new position rather pointedly puts him in an entirely different perspective in relation to his husband and he finds himself blushing when Jason's rather obvious arousal is abruptly put right at eye-level. For all his bravado and enthusiasm, Tim has never been intimate with anyone before. All his knowledge and expectations come from books, most of them medical texts he found in the university library when he was younger. The novels from his father's library rarely held anything more risqué than hand-holding and the occasional kiss. He hopes his ignorance doesn't cause this evening to fall short of Jason's own expectations.

"Hey," Jason says, leaning over to cup his cheek. His waistcoat hangs open, somehow having come completely unbuttoned while Tim was caught up in his own head. "We don't have to do this tonight. Though I _will_ be disappointed if you don't at least let me see what you have hiding under here." His other hand settles on Tim's waist, once more pressing against the stiff whalebone there.

"I'm _not_ chickening out," Tim says firmly, turning his head to briefly brush his lips against Jason's palm before pushing up, kissing him gently on the lips. "I want this. I've just… I'm rather inexperienced. The professor never wanted me like that, and the ashenweed didn't exactly leave me all that interested in, ah, more personal explorations."

"I'm hardly any better off than you when it comes to firsthand experience. I know a few things from hustlers I knew before Bruce took me in, but little more than that," Jason says, his own cheeks turning a charming shade of pink.

"I don't want to disappoint you."

"As long as you're happy with the outcome, I'll never be disappointed," Jason promises, kissing him so soundly that Tim doesn't even notice his waistcoat being unbuttoned until several minutes later.

"You really do want to see what's underneath, don't you?" Tim is more than a little awed by the other man's enthusiasm. He realizes a lot of Jason's passion is due to their being matches and the connection between them, but he's never been entirely sure how much of Jason's interest would remain if their marks hadn't matched. No one's ever expressed any sort of desire for him before after all, which leads Tim to theorize he isn't what most people would think of as conventionally attractive.

"I want the whole package, but yes," Jason says as he reaches for the buttons of Tim's shirt, "it's a nice incentive."

He flushes and gently pushes Jason's hands away. "Then let me surprise you? Close your eyes."

Jason does, leaning back to give him some space. Tim unbuttons his shirt, tossing it and his waistcoat aside. He pauses then, hesitant about removing more, but this is Jason, his friend, his match, his husband. Most assuredly the love of his life.

He quickly shimmies out of his trousers, dropping them off the edge of the bed to join shirt and waistcoat in a wrinkled pile he couldn't care less about at the moment. "Alright," Tim says, lying back on the bed. "You can open them now."

When Jason does, his jaw quite literally drops, which seems a bit excessive to Tim's mind—it's just underwear, after all. Fancy, silky underwear, much nicer than any he's ever worn before, from the sheer stockings to the lace-edged corset and underwear, the latter half-hiding the equally lacy garter belt. At least he was able to convince the duchess to let him go with a half-corset, on the basis that he lacks any cleavage in need of support.

Tim squirms under Jason's glazed-eyed stare. "I know white is traditional, but this was so pretty," he says softly, stroking the red silk of the corset. Plus, the color had reminded him of the waistcoat Jason had on when they first met. He hadn't realized he was really in a state of mind to notice such things at the time, but since then he's certainly noticed a subconscious tendency on his part to think of the man whenever he's presented with a particular shade of crimson.

" _Gorgeous_. Just like you." Jason kisses him soundly, pressing him into the bed. His knee slides between stocking-clad legs like it belongs there and Tim arches up, rocking against that solid thigh on instinct as a mewl builds at the back of his throat. Jason sheds his own waistcoat and gropes blindly at the buttons of his shirt, his normally dexterous fingers apparently turned clumsy by lust. As endearing as his fumbles are, Tim is running short on patience. Grabbing the two halves of the shirtfront, he yanks them apart, sending buttons everywhere.

"Tim!" Jason gasps, finally releasing his mouth. "That was a new shirt!"

"You were taking far too long getting it off. It's not fair that I'm the only one in my underthings." He means to say more, but a flash of reflected light where he doesn't expect it distracts him as Jason pulls off the remnants of his shirt. "What in the world…?" At first he thinks he's seeing things, but even after several blinks there's still a small gold ring pierced through Jason's left nipple.

Jason glances down, then flushes slightly. "Ah, yeah. That. Roy and I may've gotten a little jiggered one night back during university and thought it'd be a lark. He got both done, but even in my cups I wasn't sure about even just the one, so—"

" _Jason_." Tim's a little surprised by the raw quality of his voice when he speaks, but he can't help it. He swallows, trying to regain some sort of composure. "It's very nice," he says, managing to sound only slightly strained this time around. "It gives you a certain roguish appeal. Like a pirate, almost."

"Oh?" Jason smiles, his scent losing its undertones of sour uncertainty in the face of Tim's obvious approval. "Do you think me particularly piratical, my love?" 

Tim shivers involuntarily at the low growl that sneaks into Jason's voice with the question, arching up slightly off the bed. "I don't know. Are you going to plunder my riches or just talk an awful lot?"

"Maybe I want to enjoy the view before I spoil it." Jason's gaze travels down Tim's form, pointedly lingering when it reaches the fast-growing bulge at the front of his underwear, still pressed against that muscular thigh.

"Maybe the view is going to fall asleep if you take too long."

"Well, we can't have that." Suddenly Jason is lifting him, moving his entire body further up the bed while hauling Tim's legs up over his shoulders.

"I may not have done this before, but I'm fairly certain this is entirely the wrong position," Tim says, sounding more than a little breathless to his own ears. Large hands slide up stocking-clad legs to rest on his hips, and he jerks in surprise as hot lips press against his inner thigh.

"I told you," Jason says, mouth moving against sensitive skin as he speaks, "the hustlers in my old neighborhood used to talk about techniques." He shifts his grip, drawing Tim even closer, leaving hardly any space between his mouth and what's becoming increasingly sodden red silk. "Plus, Koriand'r took me aside when she learned I was marrying an omega," he adds, referring to his sister-in-law, Detective Grayson's rather intimidating foreign wife. "Tamaranian culture puts great stock in the mutual pleasure of all participants, and as an alpha woman, she's got the same parts as you." This time when he presses a kiss, it's against Tim's cock, still straining against its confinement.

He can't hold back the full-body shudder that follows, nor the cry of pleasure that escapes him. His cheeks burn with embarrassment as he feels the still-strange sensation of slick leaking out of him, further staining the already-soiled fabric. "I don't… I don't think…" Whatever protest he was about to voice gets lost in a long, loud moan when Jason opens his mouth and begins to lick and suck in earnest, the thin cloth doing little to dull the sensations. Normally, he would be ashamed of being so vocal, but at the moment Tim finds he really can't bring himself to care about much of anything aside from Jason's mouth and its ministrations.

At least, he doesn't think he can right up until Jason is peeling away the underwear and one of those large hands slides around his thigh to stroke just beside his slit. The skin there is slick and overheated, sensitive and ready to react at the slightest provocation. Tim doesn't even realize how tightly he's trying to clamp his legs together until Jason is shoving at his thighs instead of stroking them, his pleased hums from before turned to somewhat-desperate grunts.

Panic racing through him, Tim immediately unhooks his ankles from where they've locked against Jason's back and struggles to find the leverage to swing his legs off Jason's shoulders. "Sorry, oh lord, I'm so sorry!" he babbles, a weird mix of embarrassment and fear causing his stomach to roil. He's pretty sure the panic is mostly Jason's, but it's set off a sort of cycle inside him, sparking his own feelings of panic, which are in turn feeding back into his match, mirroring and amplifying. If they don't stop this now, Tim is sure to fall into another episode of unwarranted fear and the entire evening will be ruined.

Pulling in deep, calming breaths, Jason squeezes his leg—the most he can do while still struggling to regain his breath, Tim doesn't doubt. "Shh, it's alright," Jason says at last, catching one of Tim's flailing arms and pressing a kiss to his palm. "I surprised you and you reacted on instinct, which surprised me. I'm fine."

"You're sure?" If anything happened to Jason—if Tim hurt him… 

"Positive, my love." Jason's lips move down from Tim's palm to the mark on his wrist and just like that the earlier feelings of lust and desire are back again as something akin to lightning shoots out from his mark, singing through his veins in a strange sort of delightful anticipation.

"Oh!" He gasps, more than a little taken aback by the unexpected sensation. "Do that again."

Jason glances up, a somewhat perplexed look on his face. "Do what again?"

Rather than repeat himself, Tim catches Jason's wrist in his free hand and rubs his thumb over the mark there. "That," he says, feeling more than a little smug over the full-body shudder he's able to elicit in his match with that small touch.

"That's… Wow. People have touched my mark, but it's never felt like that before," Jason says, a hint of awe creeping into his voice. "I'm sure I would remember."

"But none of them were your mark-match," Tim observes, gently rubbing the feather on Jason's wrist, marveling at how smooth the skin is there, nothing like the still-scarred area on his own wrist.

"Oh god," Jason gasps, the words sounding more than a little strangled as he shudders again. "At least let me get the rest of my clothes off before you do that anymore." Tugging his wrist free, he lowers Tim's legs and sets to work removing what few items he still has on.

At the head of the bed, Tim sits up, eager to catch a glimpse his mark-match as he's finally bared. Any interest he may have lost from the earlier surprise and subsequent panic falls away, and he eagerly tugs Jason to him as soon as the last sock is dropped on the floor. 

"Come on, you're taking too long again. I want out of this corset and I need your help for that," Tim tells him, shamelessly enjoying the amazingly firm muscles of Jason's arms. He can't wait to get a chance to run his hands over equally solid musculature of his husband's chest or, heaven help him, the man's thighs.

"Can't you leave it on? It's very…" Jason trails off, but the way his scent takes on a murkier tone, the reverential touch of his fingers tracing the boning, and flare of desire across their bond all speak in volumes just how much he enjoys the undergarment.

Well, tough. "It's a nuisance to wear when I'm doing anything other than standing up straight. Plus, it'll be difficult to clean if it gets dirty, and I rather hoped you'd make a mess of me," Tim wheedles, batting his eyelashes for good measure.

Jason grumbles but still concedes to this logic, carefully unhooking the frogs down the front of the corset. "This is all Selina's fault. You didn't have one wit of omega cunning before she got her claws in you."

"Excuse me, but I've always been cunning and it's never had anything to do with my sex. Also, it was the duchess's suggestion that I still wear the fancy undergthings after I chose to forgo the dress."

Carefully peeling the corset away, Jason tosses it aside with a mournful glance. "I suppose I'll have to thank her later." He smirks and runs an appreciative hand down Tim's chest, saying, "Though this is nice too," before he wraps his hand around Tim's cock and strokes.

Tim gasps, momentarily lost in the unexpected stimulation before he remembers himself and haphazardly attempts to bat Jason's hand away. "I want to touch you too."

"Time enough for that later," Jason murmurs, leaning in and kissing him, swallowing down whimpered protests and, when his other hand first teases and then presses into Tim's slick opening, outright moans as well.

It's easy enough for him to lose himself in the sensations elicited by Jason's touch, and before long a whine is building up in the back of his throat again, aching and desperate for more. He pulls away from the kiss, resting his forehead in the join of Jason's neck while he tries to catch his breath and calm himself before this all ends much too soon. It's a less than satisfactory attempt—the new position puts his nose right by Jason's primary scent glands and the overwhelming scent of musky, spicy smoke makes him that much harder.

"Jason, _please_ ," he gasps, digging his fingers into his husband's arms, trying pull him closer, deeper, anything. "I need— _oh!_ " Moving his hands proves his undoing as his marked wrist drags across Jason's forearm. The feeling isn't as intense as when kissed directly, but fire still sings through Tim's veins, sending him over the edge as he falls back on pillows and clenches desperately down around the fingers inside of him.

"…wow." Jason is staring down at him and his voice has a queer, awe-like quality to it that prompts Tim to blush and try to hide his face. Tries, because he's less than coordinated at the moment, and anyway Jason catches his hand when he sluggishly moves it. The hand on his is wet and sticky, which only prompts him to blush harder when his still-slow brain finally catches up enough to realize the cause must be his own release.

"Sorry," he mumbles once he's finally able to find words again. "Should've been more careful with my mark."

"What for? That was… amazing. Beautiful." Jason presses a kiss to his palm and then, shooting him a wicked smirk, another, lingering one to the feather right below. Tim shudders, his spent cock giving a half-hearted twitch.

"I should have… We haven't even _done_ it yet."

"Just because you've had your pleasure doesn't mean we have to stop. Unless you want to?" Another kiss is pressed against his mark and he arches up off the bed, gasping as the fingers still inside him press deeper with the movement.

"Don't stop," Tim says immediately. "What happened to seeing to the mutual pleasure of _all_ participants? I wouldn't want to upset the princess and start an international incident by failing to see to your pleasure as well as my own."

Jason laughs. "A valid point, though I have no intention of discussing our intimate activities with her or anyone else aside from you. And as far as you seeing to my pleasure goes, I can frig myself if you'd rather—"

"Oh no," Tim interrupts before Jason can get any further. "While I wouldn't mind watching you some other time, we're damned well doing the deed tonight." Before he loses his nerve, at the very least. He has no intention of still being a virgin when his next heat rolls around in a month's time.

"You're not going to hear any complaints from me if you want to go all the way." Jason presses a final kiss to his palm, then lets it go and settles back on the bed. The change causes him to pull the fingers of his other hand free at last, and Tim mewls softly at the loss. He whines even louder when Jason gives the slick-coated fingers an experimental lick, then proceeds to suck them clean.

"Hurry up, you're going to be the death of me at this rate." Pushing up on his elbows, he bends his knee, ready to nudge Jason into action with his toe when he stops. Stares. This new position allows him to see the rest of the other man for the first time and, if Tim's honest with himself, he's a little intimidated.

"What?" Jason asks, noticing Tim's stare and following his gaze. "Something wrong?"

"'Something wrong,' he asks," Tim mutters, cheeks heating with embarrassment. "You're nearly twice my size! Be honest, is that your cock or a very short python?"

Snorting, Jason rolls his eyes. "Come on, you had to have realized there'd be some differences considering our sexes. Didn't you say you read all those anatomy texts?"

"It's one thing to see a diagram in a textbook and another thing entirely to see it across the bed from me." He swallows, tries to calm his somewhat-erratic heartbeat. It's silly to worry, people have been joining like this for thousands of years, of course it will work.

"If you're concerned about it fitting, I can stretch you some more," Jason offers, waggling his eyebrows in a manner that's no doubt supposed to be lewd but looks more ridiculous than anything else.

Tim swallows and shakes his head. "Theoretically, it shouldn't be an issue? Just… go slowly. Please."

"Of course." Jason positions himself between spread legs. "You'll stop me? If it hurts?" His cock slides easily against the sloppy mess that's Tim's entrance, rubbing but not going in just yet. The friction is nice, sending little sparks of pleasure radiating through him, but it isn't the promised act.

"Yes. Do you need me to draw you a ma—" The last word is lost as Jason presses into him and Tim clenches his teeth automatically, swallowing down a yelp that would surely have Jason stopping and dragging this out even longer.

"Tim? Are you—alright?" Jason sounds more than a little strange. When Tim opens his eyes from an involuntary wince of pain, he sees why. The man is clearly, desperately trying to hold himself back, arms shaking with the effort where they're planted in the bed.

"Fine, it's just. A lot. Don't stop."

Jason doesn't, and must have completely forgotten Tim's earlier request to go slow since he pushes in the rest of the way in a single, heart-stopping movement. If it weren't for the rush of pleasure Tim feels through their bond, he'd probably punch him. As it is, the wave of awe and love he receives from Jason is enough to take his breath away, enveloping in a way that seems to embrace his very soul.

"Oh," he gasps, unable to form any kind of real word or sentence, he's feeling so overwhelmed.

"Tell me I can move," Jason gasps—sobs, really, which. Nice to know Tim isn't alone in feeling like he's drowning.

" _Please_ ," he manages, and Jason does.

After that, he's not entirely clear as to who does what, where one of them stops and the other begins. He's Tim, but he's Jason at the same time and even though he logically knows Jason is the one thrusting into him, he also has very clear memories of doing the same to Jason.

When they finally collapse into an exhausted, sticky mess and Jason slips free of him, it feels like hours have passed, though that surely can't be the case. Probably.

"Hell's bells, that was…"

"Amazing." Tim turns his head and presses a sloppy kiss to the corner of his husband's mouth.

Jason returns the kiss but makes no effort to deepen it; he's probably just as tired as Tim. "Dick said it can be a lot, the first time you join with your match, but I didn't think…" He lifts an arm, giving Tim an expectant look.

Tim immediately snuggles in, letting Jason pull him close. They should really clean up now before all these fluids dry and turn even more disgusting, but he just doesn't have any energy left. "Intense," he mumbles against Jason's chest. A soft rumble fills the silence, low and reassuring, lulling him ever closer to sleep.

"…are you _purring_?" Jason sounds absolutely delighted.

"Shh. Sleep, now."

"Yeah," his mark-match says. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a tumblr!](http://themandylion.tumblr.com/) Come visit if you want ridiculous AU headcanons, rants about the English language (and/or educational publishing), plague fangirling, adorable baby bats, and veeeeery occasional fanart.
> 
> ALSO, HEY. I meant to say. If you enjoy this kind of thing (and by "enjoy this kind of thing" I mean depressed Tim really is your kink), I highly recommend that you go read [anthologia's fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthologia/pseuds/anthologia). They are definitely what inspired me to write my own sad!Tim story in the first place.


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